Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie 'Wich

I bet you thought that was it for new ice cream from Ben & Jerry's? I know I did, but stuffed behind the Magnums in Tesco I found a whole shelf full of individual Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream sandwiches! I did notice a chocolate 'Wich on the press release Ben & Jerry's sent out but I hadn't seen or heard anything other than that darker looking 'Wich in the background of a photo. It makes sense though, in the UK especially, I know if you asked most of my friends and family to name 2 Ben & Jerry's flavours, they'd say Cookie Dough and Chocolate Fudge Brownie - they're the classics. 

The wrapper is a bit busted, the Chocolate Fudge Brownie 'Wich is sold individually rather than in the boxes of 3 or 8 like the Cookie Dough, this is probably so it's put in the smaller ice cream cases but my local Tesco saw fit to dump as many as they could in the big freezers, hence why it isn't as pretty looking as its Cookie Dough bro. 

Chocolate Ice Cream with Brownies Sandwiched Between Chewy Double Chocolate Chip Cookies 

Its the same size as the larger Cookie Dough 'Wich and just as sturdy, if a little melted with a chocolate brownie scent rather than outright chocolate. 

I stored it in the same freezer at home as the Cookie Dough 'Wich but the Chocolate Fudge Brownie was a lot softer to begin with and had a much faster melt, this could be due to the ice cream itself but it's much more likely my Tesco were up to their old tricks of leaving the frozen products sitting in the aisles for a few hours before actually shelving them. 

Taking a bite the consistency was again the first thing I noticed, due to the fact it had already half melted it was a lot softer to eat - the Cookie Dough was soft too but still had a firmness to it whereas this felt a lot more like melted ice cream. Still I think I'm blaming Tesco for that. 

Despite my first mouthful including the cookie and the ice cream the first thing I both felt and tasted were the large brownie chunks inside the ice cream. Full of flavour with a soft, chewy texture just like in the tubs and despite Tesco's best efforts no freezer burn whatsoever. But we all know Ben & Jerry's have good quality control! 

The ice cream is very much the same story, typical Ben & Jerry's chocolate ice cream. Thick and creamy with a lovely chocolate taste although it isn't quite as strong as in the pints. Interestingly according to Ben & Jerry's website it does have a different recipe to the tubs but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it is it's chocolate on chocolate on chocolate so an ice cream with the same strength of flavour as the tubs might well end up overdoing it. 

The cookies were very different, for starters as you can see they're chocolate based. Initially I was a little disappointed (I never thought I'd say that in a B&J review!) as based on the colour I expected a strong cocoa flavour like a bourbon biscuit (or an Oreo if you must). Once I thought about it though, they aren't biscuits like a Bourbon or Oreo - they're a double chocolate chip cookie - the flavour was fine. Hopefully you understand what I mean when I say they're chocolate flavoured not cocoa, as strange as that sounds. It's a very nice chocolate flavour with chocolate chips scattered about, not too many but enough to provide smaller and stronger bursts of chocolate flavour - as if you didn't already have enough! 

As I mentioned previously in this review and in the Cookie Dough, despite efforts otherwise, they had no sogginess or freezer burn but they are completely different in texture, softer than in the Cookie Dough 'Wich and most shop bought Cookies. If this was because of the way Tesco had stored them, then I can't thank Tesco enough and recommend you leave yours out for a while before freezing - they ended up with a consistency a lot more like a brownie than a cookie and as it fits in with the theme of the 'Wich, it was much more appropriate than a harder cookie. 

Rating:

Another very tasty 'Wich from Ben & Jerrys, of the two I think the Cookie Dough has the edge just slightly as there is a greater contrast between ice cream, cookie dough chunks and actual cookies where in the Chocolate Fudge Brownie it's a little more blurred. That's by no means a criticism on the Chocolate Fudge - a big chocolatey, chewy gooey mess but that's just how I like it! 

8/10    

M&S Chicky Choccy Speckled Eggs

So this was another gift card purchase from the M&S Easter aisle, I'm still on the hunt for Cadbury replacements and I convinced myself that was reason enough to buy them - I'm sure I would have anyway, I always give in and buy things when I can see them through those damn clear packets! 

The Chicky Choccy Speckled Eggs are supposedly 

Milk chocolate Mini Eggs with a speckled candy shell 

but they're hardly mini eggs, more of a medium I'd say - you can fit about three Cadbury Mini Eggs in one of these bad boys! 

My bag contained three different colours and they mostly had an egg shape, some were a bit squashed but they were eggy enough. The speckles finish it off nicely and they really do look like tiny coloured real eggs, I reckon if they were a bluey colour you could pass them off as Quails eggs but there is never any question to Marks & Spencer's attention to detail. 

I find whenever I've had Cadbury Mini Eggs (recently anyway) that they do smell of chocolate but it's more of a sugary 'candy' chocolate but the Chicky Choccy Speckled Eggs smelt as if I'd just opened a bar of proper chocolate. 

The scent seems to be partly due to the fact the candy shell used is very thin, it's more than enough to give the crunchy crack like quality that makes Mini Eggs of any kind so addictive but overall it has a much more intense chocolate flavour. 

My favourite thing about this M&S product, and any I've tried actually is that they never scrimp on the quality. Say you go into Tesco and buy a packet of own brand Mini Eggs, the chocolate they use isn't the standard own brand stuff sold on the shelves, it's the everyday value stuff or at least a poorer/cheaper version. M&S have used the exact same 30% cocoa solids chocolate inside the Chicky Choccy Mini Eggs that they're selling in the milk chocolate bars and boy, does it make a difference! They are delicious, very milky with a proper chocolate flavour - no sugary crap and certainly no throat burn. Of course the shell is pretty sweet but the thickness of it and the pure amount of chocolate compared means its a pleasant sweetness that compliments, not overwhelms, the chocolate. 

Rating:

I need more right now. They are a grown up tasting Mini Egg, far too tasty to be given to kids who won't appreciate them. They aren't a replacement for the Cadbury Mini Egg, they just can't be compared. This will be the first of many bags of these I get through this Easter! 

8/10 

Waitrose Jelly Mini Eggs

Mini Eggs come in a many different shapes, sizes and fillings, you have your standard sugar candy shell with chocolate centre, chocolate shelled with various fillings - Creme Egg style fondant or various flavoured creams and the slightly more luxurious truffle filled centres.

 I can't say I've seen a Jelly Mini Egg, sure there are plenty of Easter themed jelly beans but these aren't exactly jelly beans.. 

Soft jelly eggs in a crisp sugar shell. 

The Jelly Mini Eggs are one of a few non-traditional mini eggs Waitrose are selling, I'll be going back for the others (Marzipan/Ginger Truffle/Marc De Champagne & Amaretto/Cream Truffle) but at £3.50 for 100g/125g depending, they'll have to wait a while! 

The eggs look delightful, they're all egg shaped (a bug bear of mine after a certain other brand of Mini Egg but that's another review!) and all had the speckled egg markings. There aren't a huge variety of colours - only four, but the smaller variety meant I had a sufficient amount of each. There is no way they could get more than a minimum of three of each flavour in each packet if there were any more due to the sheer size of the eggs - they are humongous!!

I had a Candy King jelly bean left over from my Pick'n'Mix (I know, leftover Pick'n'Mix - I must be getting ill!!) and to be fair they were actually rather large for an ordinary jelly bean but just for comparison.. 

And that was a large standard bean and one of the smaller jelly eggs! 

Anyway..

The eggs are just plain weird. They have a hard shell, harder than the outside of a normal jelly bean and I had to give it a good solid bite to get in - and yes they're that big that I could eat each one in two bits. The inside of the egg was nothing like I expected, it's not like a jelly bean at all. It's not really firm but nowhere near as soft as a jelly bean and has a gritty kind of chew, but it's not chewy either. Am I confusing you yet? Because these sure confused me while I was eating them, I think you'd need to try them to truly understand how they feel, they're nothing like anything I've eaten before! That's definitely not a bad thing though.

On to the flavours, I'm going to guess the flavours are the actual flavourings used as they seemed to match up. 

The orange eggs were undoubtedly Orange flavoured, nothing new or exciting but very nice nonetheless. The white eggs threw me, I'm not going to lie, I'm so used to white jelly beans being marshmallow or coconut flavoured I initially convinced myself that white tasted a bit like marshmallow. Working through the other flavours and the ingredients list has left me to believe its actually Apricot flavoured though. Truth be told its not a flavour I'm very familiar with but either way marshmallow/apricot it was pretty damn tasty! 

Pink is usually some kind of berry in any sweet and here was no different. I tried one before I read the ingredients and I thought maybe strawberry, the ingredients say otherwise with Raspberry and once I'd read it, I could taste it. Very juicy and a definite fail safe. I'd kind of given up by the yellow, my brain and my tastebuds weren't connecting and I had to cheat and refer to the ingredients which inform me its probably Pineapple. I'm going to plead ignorance in that it's not a flavour used to often but I wish it was, it was very nice!  

Last but not least was green, usually the apple flavoured sweet but Waitrose have bucked the trend and gone for Pear. I think I've mentioned before I like the flavour of pear just not the texture and this sweet has just reinforced that. My god, sweet makers of Britain - forget about apple, its all about pear! Absolutely delicious and much to my surprise the best in the box. 

Rating:

I might be a bit vague on the flavours and unable to properly describe the texture, but trust me these are a must-try! They can't be compared to a jelly bean, they're a whole different kettle of fish. I'm very glad I chose these other the other more traditional style mini eggs. 

8/10 

New Covent Garden Soup Co - Soup of the month February

I can't believe its February already, but one good thing comes out of the months flying past so fast and that's a new Soup Of The Month from New Covent Garden Soup Co. 

This month is Thai Style Broccoli & Ginger, a bit of a strange mix you might think but apparently it's been carefully selected with Valentines Day in mind. OK I'm a week late on that one, but soup isn't my idea of a fun valentines, plus it was a Sunday - pizza day, obviously! 

Anyway the press release is as follows: 

Made with a delicious mix of well documented aphrodisiac ingredients and Thai spices, the soup is perfect for consumers seeking to celebrate the most romantic of months.

New Covent Garden Soup Co put it a little nicer on the packet:

Romance is sure to be in the air this month with our latest tantalising marriage of flavours.... ....Whether enjoying it with your significant other or sipping it solo (wahey!) let our new Thai Broccoli & Ginger Soup of the month make your taste buds skip a beat this year. 

The soup, as always, is nice and healthy with half a carton containing 1 and 1/2 of your 5 a day and is suitable for vegetarians. 

What a charming shade of green! 

Before opening the carton I thought broccoli didn't really have a smell but sure enough something smelt broccoli-ish. That didn't last long though and it soon began to smell exactly as it would taste. 

There were no 'chunky' ingredients so to speak, like potato and no large chunks of broccoli or any other veg but the soup was very thick, yet still had a quite smooth texture. 

The first taste I noticed was of the coconut - though that's probably due to my usual aversion to coconut - and it soon blended in with the various spices used. 

The spices chosen were perfect, mixed with the coconut it had a flavour extremely reminiscent of a Thai Curry and a slight spicy kick to it. I'd always assumed the Thai fish sauce or stock was what gave Thai Curry that unique flavour that I love but after eating this soup, with its complete absence of anything fishy, I'm guessing it's actually the coconut. 

I think the coconut is what gives it the thick creamy texture as well, as there's nothing remotely creamy listed either but this really felt and tasted like I was eating a slightly watery, not too spicy Thai Curry.

I didn't actually taste the various veg; broccoli, onion, cauliflower, kale or even the rice. They weren't very large but I didn't mind as this soup isn't about the textures or the flavours of those. It's all about the spices and they are spot on. 

My one gripe is the vegetable I did notice, the spinach. Now I love spinach but there were large whole spinach leaves and unfortunately they just ended up stringy and slimy. Not a very pleasant feeling but thankfully there weren't too many. 

Rating:

I can't say the soup made me particularly horny so it would have failed if I'd been using it as an aphrodisiac but it was tasty enough I'll let that slide! 

It was surprisingly filling too so I don't think I'd be very comfortable even moving right now let alone working up a sweat!! 

8/10  

Maria Tepoztlán Xocolatl Tequila

Last Friday I mentioned during my Tequila Candy review that I'd also received a bar of chocolate containing Tequila. That bar comes all the way from Mexico from a company named Villa Vainilla, who seem primarily to sell vanilla extract though they do sell various other goodies in Duty Free at the airport. 

Rather than a description of any sort of the chocolate on the packet, there is a full on essay on the origins of chocolate. I'm sure you can Google it if you have any interest. 

The ingredients list is without a doubt the shortest I've ever seen on any chocolate bar: Cacoa, sugar, agave syrup and lecithin. Note the absence of tequila in any shape or form. 

Some snooping on the company website informs me that Maria Tepoztlán Xocolatl is different to other chocolates because it contains more than 70% cacoa and 25% sugar. Yes those Mexicans sure love their sugar! 

The bar hadn't travelled very well and had a slight bloom and was quite scuffed. It weighed 200g but was no longer than a standard 120g bar of Cadbury, it was ridiculously thick though and was sectioned into 6 squares with the company logo etched into a larger one in the centre, 

It wasn't as dark as I expected considering what it's made from but it was darker than a standard milk chocolate. 

If you Google Maria Tepoztlán Xocolatl Chocolate you will read page upon page of negative comments - "waxy tasting" "the worst chocolate I've ever tried in my life" "disgusting, I threw it away" - now most of these comments either a) come from Americans (before you jump down my throat, most Americans who will be buying chocolate from Duty Free in Cancun are going to be used to Hersheys High Fructose Corn Syrup style stuff) b) are from quite a while back or c) are the standard plain bar. If you specifically Google the Tequila flavour or find the newer posts, the comments are a lot more positive. 

My bar, thankfully, is the Tequila purchased in January 2016.

I told you it was thick! It was literally impossible to break any off apart from along the indentations. So what you're looking at is 100g of hefty chocolate! 

It smelt amazing, incredibly rich smelling with a strong cocoa scent but strangely nothing like a British bar of 'dark' chocolate. One of the most tempting chocolate bars I've smelt for a long while. 

One thing I can agree on with the negative reviews, though I disagree with it being a bad thing, is that the chocolate has a strange gritty texture. In fact, you can even see the grittiness in the photos, Apparently it's due to the cacoa being stone ground, I have no clue if that is true but I like to think it is, it adds a touch of authenticity! 

Amongst the gritty chocolate were whole pieces of cacoa beans. They were crunchy and quite small but added a new mix in to the already interesting textures at play. They didn't add to much in terms of taste but I enjoyed them nonetheless. 

I expected a dark, bitter tasting chocolate as the packet goes into great detail about how the word chocolate comes from Xocolatl which means bitter water, but there was no bitterness whatsoever. I actually really enjoyed the chocolate, it had a sweet vanilla flavour which I can't for the life of me work out where it came from, its certainly not listed in the ingredients. It has a lovely, rich cocoa flavour too but unsurprisingly as it has at least 25% sugar (so a good 50g of the 200g bar) it was very sweet. Mexicans are renowned for their use of 'real' sugar though and it shows - none of the artificial sickliness and burning sweetness just a good old fashioned addictive sugar hit.

Strangely it had a sort of milky taste to it too, not milky like proper Cadbury Dairy Milk but nothing like ordinary dark chocolate. I say strangely as there is no milk or anything even resembling milk in the ingredients at all.  

The whole time I was waiting for the Tequila flavour to kick in like in the Candies but it was nowhere to be found. Nothing, zilch, nada, jack.. I have absolutely no clue why it's even on the packet, maybe to lure gullible spring break tourists in to buy it, but I didn't miss it anyway.  

Rating: 

I have a few theories on why my review will be so different to others online, due to the reasons I've previously mentioned - regional tastes, new recipe or different flavour but I think it's one of those Marmite products. You either love it or hate it, I adore Marmite so it's quite right that I really bloody enjoyed this too! 

8/10 

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!  

Tropical Skittles

New flavoured Skittles are few and far between, most recently have been Confused in 2013, Orchards and Wild Berry in 2014 and Darkside in 2015. 

There seems to be a bit of confusion on the flavours included in the bag as a Tropical mix are sold in the US too but with very different flavours than are named in the UK press release. 

The bag had a generally fruity and quite tropical scent and there were five different coloured and so flavoured sweets. 

Orange was, surprise surprise, Orange flavoured. O.K orange can be quite tropical but its a bit of a safe choice and ended up being probably the most boring. It was very nice actually but I'm not sure how much more I can say about it, the least imaginative of the bunch. 

The dark purple sweet turned out to be Passionfruit, which isn't a flavour I'd usually choose but it was absolutely delicious - very juicy and fruity tasting. 

The blue sweets were Tropical flavoured and were again another very tasty flavour.  I didn't notice any outright single flavour but they tasted just like a sweet, juicy, fruity cocktail, minus the alcohol, sadly! 

I wasn't sure which flavour pink would be as its normally reserved for berry type flavours and there were none but it ended up being Watermelon. I've been disappointed by too many watery tastless real watermelons to bother with them but I do like a watermelon flavoured sweet and these were no exception. They weren't ridiculously strong or artificial tasting like American sweets or the Pick'n'Mix style Fizzy Watermelons but it had a clear and distinct watermelon flavour. Lovely!

Last but by no means least was yellow,  I knew that it was supposed to be Pineapple thanks to the internet but I'd have guessed anyway. They too were good and tasted just like pineapple juice! 

Rating:

All were very good alone but eaten together is where they really shine as a Tropical mix. I could well have been sitting on a hot beach somewhere with a very large cocktail sunning myself. 

These are by far the best flavour Skittles have released in a while!

8/10 

Marks & Spencer Hot Cross Buns

Hot Cross Buns are one of the few cakes (buns to be specific) I enjoy. The word enjoy doesn't do justice to my love of the sweet, sticky balls of dough - adore, covet, obsess - these are all more appropriate words. Of course they're sold all year round unlike other Easter treats but the special ones are saved for the few months between Christmas and whenever Easter falls. 

You can't beat a normal Hot Cross Bun, I don't think there is a bad way to eat one - plain, with butter, toasted, untoasted, for breakfast, lunch or a snack they are pretty much a perfect food! 

Last year I tried (though I dont think I reviewed) the Tesco fresh bakery Double Chocolate Hot Cross Buns but I had vouchers to use up this year and so Marks & Sparks it was! I picked up two different flavours as a 2 for £2.50 promotion and got 8 decent sized buns for my troubles. 

Toffee Fudge & Belgian Chocolate

First up had to be these. If I had to pick 5 of my favourite confectioneries , toffee, fudge and chocolate would be three of them (that would be purely confectionery - junk food in general I wouldn't know where to start!)

My excitement to eat these only grew once I'd got a look at them out of the wrapper, they're quite large and had that glistening sticky look which meant I knew before I'd even tried that these weren't going to be a stodgy dry bun. 

They mainly smelt of normal Hot Cross Buns, though once I'd actually got up close and personal I could smell some deliciously chocolate undertones. 

 Sometimes appearances aren't deceiving and you should judge a book by its cover.. It was just as moist (shudder) as I expected, with a thick, quite dense mouth feel but it was far from stodgy. My first bun didn't have that many additional pieces to be fair, so around half of it was just a plain hot cross bun - the toffee, chocolate and fudge are in chips and pieces - and to be truthful, I'd have been perfectly satisfied with just this! It's sweet with the usual spices that aren't so strong to be overwhelming but enough to have that unmistakable Easter taste. 

I'll be straight, in the first I was seriously lacking on the toffee front to the point I didn't taste it at all, but I didn't miss it in the slightest. The first and stronger flavour was the Belgian chocolate, dark and rich with a delicious flavour it complimented the spices of the bun and the sweetness of the fudge perfectly. The fudge pieces were an odd one, they provided the sweetness to wrap the overall flavour up neatly and while I could taste a milkiness to them that the Belgian chocolate chips didn't have, I'm not sure I'd have known they were Fudge had that not been in the name, I'd have probably guessed a milk chocolate. They were very tasty either way! Mr.1T's buns and the second one I had were chocked full of Toffee though, so I think its luck of the draw.

Speaking of the second bun, my God I should have tried it this way first!! I toasted it literally for seconds, just so it was warm but still soft and squidgy and it was even better. The extra toffee and fudge pieces were delicious, sweet and both had the appropriate flavour but the dark Belgian chocolate stole the show. It melted immediately into pools of gooey rich chocolate, its going to be a pain in the backside to clean my toaster but it was oh so worth it. Amazing. 

Rating:

Delicious!! I have another M&S gift card left, would it be wrong to spend it all on chocolate buns??

8/10 

Berries & Cherries 

We'd have both been quite happy with just the chocolate buns but pushed the boat out as we weren't paying and decided to take M&S up on their 2 for £2.50 offer. There were a few other choices, but the idea of apple or orange in my Hot Cross Buns didn't seem to appealing and we went with the fairly safe Berries & Cherries option - raspberries, cranberries, blackberries and cherries. 

They don't look as tempting as the previous pack, but stick some chocolate on top of nearly anything and I'll want to eat it! That said, the actual bun looked drier and I pinched the juiciest looking ones for myself before Mr.1T noticed. The berries and cherries stood out, except for the blackberries which looked a lot like raisins, and a lot of the dough had been stained various shades of red. 

They were the complete opposite to the Toffee, Fudge & Chocolate flavour - whereas that smelt like a Hot Cross Bun with a little chocolate this had a much fruitier scent and the spices of the bun seemed like an afterthought. 

As before I tried each flavour twice, the first was un-toasted and I was a little surprised. Considering these should be the same base bun just with different ingredients (the chocolate/fruits) it had a completely different feel. I did eat the chocolatey bun the day before the fruity but there are still 4 days before the use by date. Where the bun was beautifully moist before it had a stodgier, chewier feel in the berries and cherries. It seemed a lot more work eating it if that makes sense, it probably wouldn't have seemed inferior if I'd eaten these first but the quality seemed poorer and I'm not sure 24 hours would make that much difference - and I picked the juiciest looking! 

Texture aside, it seemed to have less of a Hot Cross Bun flavour to it too, the traditional spices were a lot duller and the dough tasted less sweet too. 

The fruits were good though, very vibrant, juicy and fresh tasting. Happily there were four clear individual flavours and it didn't all mesh into one big vaguely 'red berry' flavour - they are the star of the show for sure. 

Unlike the previous buns, the Berries & Cherries didn't taste very different toasted, the only real change was in the texture. Toasting it seemed to make it feel less doughy or stodgy so it was a slight improvement but not enough that if there were any more left I'd move my lazy arse off the sofa to the toaster! 

Rating:

It sounds like I'm really slating these but they weren't that bad, sadly they'd just suffered the fate of being eaten after the delicious Toffee, Fudge & Belgian Chocolate Buns! 

7/10

M&S Mini Easter Biscuits

I seem to be getting stuck in these obsessive cycles, some people call them fads but its definitely an addiction! At Christmas it was all about the mince pie, I'm addicted to chocolate year round so Easter is the turn of the humble Hot Cross Bun! 

Thanks to the vouchers and Marks & Sparks being one of the first to roll them out, I obliterated their Easter aisle - keep your eyes peeled for the reviews in the coming weeks. 

I've been wondering on twitter if someone would release a Hot Cross Bun flavoured ice cream, I really hope they do but until then I'll settle for biscuits! 

Technically they're called Easter Biscuits but the description makes it a little more specific; 

All butter fruity & lightly spiced biscuits...

All butter spice flavour biscuits with currants, sweetened dried cranberries and candied lemon peel. 

If you aren't a weirdo like me who reads the packet in depth before tucking in, the scent will soon clue you in. I could tell these were going to be good instantly, the traditional and familiar Hot Cross Bun scent was so strong and if I'd shut my eyes I could well have believed I was sniffing an actual Hot Cross Bun.

The biscuits are "mini" but they aren't that small really, slightly larger than Mini Maryland Cookies but easily a one bite mouthful. One or two looked quite plain but the majority were stuffed with currants and cranberries, I couldn't see too much lemon peel (thankfully) but after tasting I have no doubt it was there. 

The biscuits themselves are beautifully buttery and crumbly, firmer than Shortbread but not as crunchy as a standard everyday biscuit. They'd be perfectly nice alone actually, they're sweet but not too much, the butter means they didn't make my mouth dry at all and running all throughout are those spices. They smelt a lot like Hot Cross Buns but they tasted even more so -in fact, I'd had a real Hot Cross Bun a couple of hours previously and these tasted more authentic than those! 

The currants seem huge in the small biscuits and they're very juicy and chewy. The cranberries have a sweet, vibrant flavour and the lemon peel that I couldn't see had a slightly tart taste which rounded the whole shebang off perfectly. 

Rating:

It's not too often flavours remind me of seasons but these just tasted like Spring if that makes sense. M&S please remove the word Easter and sell these year round, everyone else sells Hot Cross Buns all the time! Absolutely delicious, they couldn't have got 'Easter' flavour more spot on. 

8/10

Nakd Caffé Mocha

When I can't have something, I want it all the more. The Caffé Mocha Nakd bars aren't sold in any single supermarket, in all fairness I could have ordered a full case from the Nakd website but I wanted to try 1 - not 18!!

I've been on the hunt since Amy found one in a health shop but I've not had much luck. For the last few weeks I've had an immediate family member in an Intensive Care Unit and so it's been a continuous cycle of days with long visiting hours with literally five minute breaks to wolf down a quick bite to eat. And so Nakd bars have been a god send! My supply had taken a serious hit until what should I find in the hospital canteen? The elusive Caffé Mocha! Typical, it's literally been underneath me for the whole time.. 

The bar is gluten, wheat and dairy free, vegan and one of your 5 a day. 

Looks:

Not much different to every other Nakd bar! A little darker and almost shinier - it looks moister (vom, I hate that word!) than some of the other flavours. 

Smell:

100% strong coffee baby! Although this didn't get my hopes up too much, I've been lead on by strong coffee scented edibles in the past only to have my heart broken by the poor flavour. 

Taste:

If you've read Amy's review you'll know she wasn't that impressed, I do agree somewhat with her review - it isn't as sweet as other bars but I also disagree.

As a black coffee fan I'm always annoyed when products focus on the milky sweeter coffee variations. I suppose it's to reach a wider audience, but why would someone buy coffee flavoured food if they aren't after the taste of coffee? Anyway, I understand this is Mocha flavoured, so is chocolate/cocoa and coffee but pleasingly (for me) the strong rich coffee flavour is predominant and the cocoa, while noticeable plays second fiddle.

The texture is the same as every other non-Crunch Nakd bar but the strong coffee and cocoa flavours overwhelm the signature date/nut/raisin flavour that makes the base of all the other bars. I think this is probably what Amy found lacking, but I enjoyed the more authentic stronger tastes.

Delicious - I've cleared the canteen out!! 

8/10