American M&M's Part 2

Part one of my American M&M review can be found here, where I tried Birthday Cake and Peanut Butter flavour M&Ms and M&M cookies. 

Today is the turn of Mint Chocolate, Dark Chocolate and Pretzel flavours. 

Mint

Not only are they mint flavoured but the chocolate inside is also a dark chocolate. Nowhere on either the mint or dark chocolate packs can I find any information on how dark a chocolate is used, but I'm guessing not very. 

In keeping with the mint theme, there isn't a mix of colours but different shades of green. Again they seem a little bit bigger than usual and I was wondering if American M&M's are just bigger than ours in general. 

I could smell the mint straight away, still lingering in the empty bag and through the candy shell. 

To say these are strong would be an understatement. They are ridiculously minty! To the point when I ate one alone it was like eating a polo, pure mint with a faint chocolate aftertaste. The chocolate does taste stronger when you eat a few at a time but then so does the mint. The chocolate itself didn't taste noticable darker. 

They are moreish and although I didn't particularly enjoy them I did finish the bag. One for the mint/mint chocolate lovers definitely, they were just too minty for me. 

Rating 5/10 

Dark Chocolate 

Next up was dark chocolate, which I was very much looking forward to even though the chocolate hadn't impressed me too much in the mint. Again it doesn't state how dark the chocolate is or give much description at all, but the first ingredient in both is semisweet chocolate. 

These seemed more like the size I'm used to. 

They did smell like normal chocolate which at first left me a little disappointed but I realised it smelt more like our normal chocolate rather than sugary candy. 

Trying them they did taste slightly darker, by no means were they dark dark or bitter but definitely less sweet than ususal. The chocolate was quite nice actually and I preferred it. You still have the sugary sweetness in the candy shell but rather than a sugary chocolate centre which can be overpowering, the chocolate was the main flavour. 

Another addictive bag! 

Rating 8/10 

Pretzel 

Next up was Pretzel, it's slightly different from the other bags, rather than being flavoured it's actually the candy shell and milk chocolate wrapped around pretzel pieces instead of a solid chocolate centre. 

Firstly these don't even look like M&Ms, they're more of a circle than a disc and they're absolutely huge! 

That's a Mega M&M next to it - not an ordinary one! 

I tried one and straight away I was unsure. It's a bit strange to be honest. For starters it's a lot less chocolatey. 

One lost a part of the shell in the bag so you can see it's a very thin layer of chocolate inside. 

They are even more crunchy than usual but it seemed like the wrong kind of  

crunchy to me.  They felt stale to be perfectly honest- not stale tasting at all but the crunch just felt like when something that's supposed to be crispy goes a bit soft but you still get that crunch. I hope that makes sense! 

Some of the larger ones were slightly salty but overall I found these a bit boring and I wasn't a fan of the texture. 

Rating 5/10 

Mega

I wasn't going to review the Mega M&Ms, having reviewed the UK version here a couple of weeks ago. But I thought it might be interesting to compare the two, seeing as its in the very recent memory! 

They looked just the same as our ones but that's were the similarities ended. As I wasn't planning on doing a proper review I shovelled a couple in my mouth and couldn't believe I noticed the difference straight away. Whereas in our Mega M&Ms everything seemed a lot more chocolatey, these were much like the end of the Birthday Cake flavour. They were sickly sweet - but immediately. The chocolate was not nice at all. I mentioned during the week I reviewed American snacks and chocolate I hadn't come across a chocolate that had the sicky flavour to it - well I jinxed myself because I found it here. 

I actually googled the UK version to find an ingredient list, which I found on the Asda website, and compared to the back of the packet from the U.S.A and suprise suprise - there are quite a few differences! 

The texture and feel are the same but I did not enjoy the flavour of these one bit. 

Rating 5/10 

Green & Black's Mint Chocolate Ice Cream

I've never tried Green & Black's ice cream before, I don't actually know why considering I enjoy their chocolate but this new tub found its way into my Ocado order.

It's a "dark chocolate ice cream (minimum cocoa solids 72.5%) with a chocolate peppermint ripple" the ripple is a sauce and the ice cream is made with fresh cream. 

On first inspection it didn't look or smell very minty but I was impressed nonetheless. It looked more like a mousse than an ice cream, despite how the flash has shown up in the photo there were no ice crystals or sign it had been frozen at all and it smelt deliciously chocolatey. 

The tub says to wait ten minutes before eating but I'm impatient and it didn't matter anyway as it was soft and scoopable straight away. The ice cream was amazing. You can tell fresh, higher quality ingredients have been used, it's luxuriously thick and creamy with a beautiful chocolate flavour. It didn't taste particularly dark, especially not 72.5% dark, but seeing as the first and second ingredients are milk and whipping cream, a slight milkiness is to be expected. 

It's not just a generic chocolate flavour though, it's probably one of the nicest chocolate ice creams I've tried. Even though the mint is only in the ripple and I didn't have barely any in the first layer, there was a slight lingering aftertaste where the mint flavour had kind of seeped out of the sauce. It was like it was teasing me! 

Once I got to the ripple I was again impressed. Despite not being a mint chocolate lover I really enjoyed it. Not only did it add a lovely refreshing touch to the creamy chocolate but the sauce was extremely smooth and rich (probably why it only makes up 15% of the pint) and you could feel the difference in texture alongside the flavour. 

I had a little more in the bottom half and I still can't decide wether I prefer it with slightly more or slightly less, both were delicious. The peppermint chocolate sauce is very stong and very rich so I can see why there isn't too much of it, the amount there is is perfect. The fresh minty flavour really cuts through the chocolate and anymore would probably be overkill. 

Absolutely beautiful ice cream!! 

Rating 8/10  (that's saying something coming from me! I normally hate mint chocolate!) 

We even bought this to share too 

But I wasn't sharing this! So he got that and I got this all to myself

8/10

Oppo Mint choc swirl

I finally got back to a Waitrose this week and after much digging around in the back of the freezer I grabbed the one and only mint choc swirl Oppo ice cream they had left - it must be a popular flavour! 

I've previously reviewed the salted caramel Oppo ice cream here and really enjoyed it despite the fact it's a healthy, low calorie, guilt free version. A little 

bit of info before Oppo use natural ingredients and sweeteners and each tub use a different one. The mint choc swirl uses erythritol, stevia, spirulina 'commonly used in food supplements, spirulina is a blue-green plant grown in the south-China sea' (which will explain the colour achieved despite no added nasties but more of that later) and apple extract. The ice cream itself is made using virgin coconut oil and the choc swirl is Peruvian cacao, cocoa powder, blossom honey and vanilla extract. There are a few stabilisers added but even they're not your typical scarily named mysteries - Guar gum, Carrageenan and Locust bean gum. I've added the ingredients to my review as I did find it hard to believe they use health food ingredients that I don't normally find very tasty and made something I eat through choice - not to fit in a diet! 

Anyway on to the good stuff. The ice cream was alarmingly green! This might (and is a total guess so I could be completely off the mark here) be why Spirulina is used - to colour the mint ice cream without any added colourings. On first taste I was also suprised by how strong the mint flavour was, the strength is normally something I'd associate with some clever chemicals added in, it was really that minty! I don't mind mint, it's not particularly a flavour I look for but it was beautifully fresh and cooling with the cold ice cream and was perfect for a warm night like last night. 

As before the ice cream itself was thick and creamy, it did melt down pretty quickly which I'm not normally too keen on but that could have been because last night was quite warm. After a few mouthfuls I realised (idiot!) this is a bit different to other chocolate mint ice creams, in that it's a mint ice cream with a chocolate/cacao swirl instead of a chocolate ice cream with mint. The swirl soon appeared on my spoon and it was delicious, nice and rich and just as strong in flavour as the mint, it easily matched up and held its own against the strong mint. 

I really, really enjoyed this flavour, the next time I fancy a change from the usual chocolate brownie/cookie dough/fudge ice creams, I would definitely buy this again - especially as the mint Ben & Jerrys was a seasonal tub. I think the fact it's healthier is just an added bonus. 

Rating 7/10 

Ben & Jerry's Minter Wonderland

This is the third and final new pint from Ben & Jerrys and it's called Minter Wonderland. 

You can see from the packaging this is a winter release, it's a mint ice cream with chocolatey chunks so pretty normal wintery flavours. I actually misread this when I bought it and assumed it was a chunk free mint chocolate pint like Joy To The Swirled and so I was pleasantly surprised to see chocolate bits once I opened it. 

I'm not a great lover of all things mint - mint chocolate, mojitos even mint body wash (which causes arguments as it's my partners fave!) so I was a bit nervous about a mint only ice cream. For my first few mouthfuls I was not keen at all. The ice cream itself was fine and more than matched up to the usual Ben & Jerry's high standards it was just the strangeness of the mint I suppose, my mouth isn't supposed to be feeling fresher the more I eat! However that changed the further I got into the pint, while I wouldn't choose a mint ice cream against other flavours this was pretty addictive. 

It only got more addictive once I really started getting to the chocolate chunks, they're massive! Every single chocolate chunk was a full square and if I did come across a smaller piece there was another part it had broken off from right next to it. The chocolate and mint go so well together (as everyone except me apparently) knows and there's no worry of running out of chocolate pieces, I got chocolate pretty much every time I pulled my spoon out. 

I wouldn't go as far as saying this is one of my favourite Ben & Jerry's, to tell you the truth it's not even in my top ten, but it does stand up to the rest of the range. If you're a mint/mint chocolate lover I think you'll love this, it is a yummy ice cream and it's made me rethink my hatred of mint chocolate - I just love my fudge, caramel and cookie dough too much to bump this up in my rankings. 

I said at the start of this review I wouldn't pick this over another flavour, but thinking back on it this is very Christmassy tasting. I actually think it would be lovely when it's reeeeally cold or eaten like normal people - just a scoop served up with other Christmas goodies. Maybe I will buy it again... 

Rating 7/10