Marmite Flatbreads & More..

Marmite is the greatest spread in the world. Keep your peanut butter, Nutella and Lotus, I'm happy in the corner with a big tub of Marmite and a spoon. 

There is almost nothing in the world that can't be improved with Marmite..  I can think of one thing. Years ago when it was fashionable to buy bread makers we used to set it in the evening to have warm, fresh bread for breakfast the next day. Until one fateful evening, where my dad had the bright idea to replace the yeast in the recipe with Marmite - his reasoning being Marmite is yeast extract and it would save us spreading it on top right? Wrong. 

It was the most disgusting thing any of us have ever eaten in our lives. It spawned the family anthem "Marmite Breads Gone" (sung to the tune of Don't Stop by Fleetwood Mac) and marked the last time my parents ever made bread in our bread machine. It didn't put me off Marmite though! 

The Marmite snacks I'm reviewing today aren't new but they are rather difficult to track down so I'd missed them until now. 

Marmite Flatbreads

Bread, cheese and Marmite. The holy trinity of foodstuffs. Normally I have to go to the extreme effort of putting cheese and Marmite on my crackers but Unilever have heard my lazy girl prayers and created Marmite Flatbreads. 

Crispy Flatbreads thoughtfully baked with lots of lovely Marmite. 

And cheese! Which I didn't realise till I cracked open the box and got a whiff of the cheddary goodness. 

There were lots of long thin flatbreads with what would be a burnt look in any other craker like product. There's only supposed to be 12% Cheddar cheese and I don't know if I got lucky but there seemed to be a lot more very generously spread about on top. 

Seriously, so much cheese!! Maybe too much cheese, although thats strictly only as a Marmite lover. I couldn't really smell the black stuff at all. 

The flatbreads themselves are good, a very crisp crunchy texture with a nice satisfying bite. As the scent and look led me to expect, they tasted predominantly of cheese, thankfully it's a pretty damn tasty cheese and I kind of forgot about the Marmite! 

I soon began to taste it, initially as more of an after taste but as you can see in the photos, the darker areas had a much stronger Marmite flavour. The combination of pleasing texture and delicious cheese and Marmite flavours made for a very moreish mix and although they are quite dry overall I was soon kicking myself that I'd agreed to share them with Mr.1T. 

Rating: 

9/10 

Extra Marmite improves everything. 

Breadstick Bites 

The bag weighs 30g so roughly the same as a small packet of crisps but there are half the amount of breadsticks than in even the most air filled packet of Walkers. They are teeny tiny so don't expect to eat a bag and feel satisfied afterwards unless you're a mouse or a toddler but for a Marmite fix they're reasonable enough. 

They were a lot darker than the anaemic breadsticks that are sold in most supermarkets and were covered in a Marmite brown powder. 

Uhoh. They smell like Marmite Crisps. Not the original (and superior) Walkers Marmite Crisps but the ones that came in a black packet. I hated those, they smelt like Marmite but the flavour was pathetic. I know I'm not alone in that opinion as they stopped making those and bought back the Walkers version. 

The size of the breadsticks lets them down slightly, they're perfectly easy to chuck in in one go but I was trying to be civilised and eat them nicely. They're quite brittle and so whenever I tried to take a bite they shattered, the small size meant I ended up with little shards rather than two halves so I gave up and in to my greediness. There's not much else that can be said on the texture, nice and crunchy just as a good breadstick should be - no complaints here. 

Thankfully the smell might have been of the black crisps but the taste was nothing like. Strong enough for me, which is saying something - I'm not exaggerating when I say I eat Marmite off a spoon. 

They're ridiculously addictive which usually is a good thing but they come in such a tiny bag, I just know I'm going to end up buying 5 bags and chucking them all into a bowl! I was impressed with the Breadstick Bites, so much so that I can only think of two ways they can be improved: 1) make the breadsticks cheese flavoured - see above and 2) dunked in marmite. More Marmite is always good. 

Rating:

8/10 

Rice Cakes 

Rice Cakes aren't a product I'd usually buy considering I'm on an anti-diet, but I've never turned down Marmite flavoured anything (I did try the black Marmite crisps a few times!) and I'm not about to start now. 

Typically I paid over the odds for these in the canteen again and the day after I saw them in Sainsburys for half the price! 

They didn't have as strong a Marmite scent as the bread sticks but it was there mixed in with the usual rice cake smell. It is reasonably strong actually, I think I've just been spoilt with the crisps and breadsticks recently. 

I was pretty impressed with the amount of rice cakes, OK they're small but considering the bag only contains 91 calories it took me a lot longer to eat these than the crisp equivalent. A few were a bit smashed but that's my fault for putting them in the bottom of my bag, most were sturdy enough to survive being lugged around for the day. They had varying levels of brownness (which showed in the flavour) but they seemed to have a decent amount of Marmite flavouring coated on top. 

I had tried a Marmite rice cake before, though they were the bigger ones and I didn't buy them again for a couple of reasons. The main being the consistency of the rice cake, no-one I know eats rice cakes because they enjoy them but they were extremely chewy and cardboard like. These mini cakes were a lot better, they had more of a crunchy crisp texture and felt like I was actually eating real food! 

As expected, the darker cakes had much more Marmite flavour. I quite enjoyed them actually they are strong enough to satisfy most people (though they are much improved with a thick layer of Marmite on top!) and salty enough to give them that addictive edge. 

Rating:

Better than I thought they'd be, if you're on a diet they're great but I'll stick with crackers and lashings of the real stuff for now. 

7/10 

Marmite Easter Egg 

I wont bother with a full review - I did that last year - and its much of the same this year, average chocolate with an addictive salty umami hit. A must have for any Marmite fan. However I'm not happy with Unilever at all. As it stands they haven't altered the Marmite recipe, although who knows if that'll be the case next Easter, but they've obviously seen how successfully Mondelez have shrunk the contents of an Easter Egg (seriously Cadbury, ONE Creme Egg??) and taken out the entire package of Marmite Cashews that were included in the (identically priced) Marmite Egg last year. 

You can't use the increasing costs of cocoa as an excuse here Unilever!