The Collective Dairy - limited edition Gingerbread Live Gourmet Yoghurt

I don't know what it's like where you are, but down here in miserable London it's dark and freezing when I start work and dark and cold again by the time I finally sit down and start to think about dinner. With the change in weather, longer nights and shorter days, I'm embracing all the Autumn and Winter themed products that are being released wholeheartedly.. I can't wait for snow! 

The Collective live gourmet yoghurts are a favourite of mine, especially Coffee, Russian Fudge and the Banoffee flavours and I've reviewed a couple here. They are a little on the pricey side but I think they're the Ben & Jerry's or Haagen Dazs of the yoghurt aisle. 

Gingerbread is nice and straightforward a live yoghurt with a gingerbread syrup swirl. 

The foil seal is themed as always and the back has a little 'run, run as fast as you can - you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!' ditty, alongside a little paragraph explaining that it's not made to hang around and there is "no Bull". This is also gluten free, suitable for vegetarians and made without artificial colours, flavours or preservatives. 

I don't buy gingerbread ever, I think I don't like it but then I get to my mums house, find the gingerbread house she's made and inhale the lot. So I went into this with an open mind - remembering that although it's not a particular favourite of mine, gingerbread is addictive! 

I couldn't explain to you what plain yoghurt smells like, but I could smell it after I peeled the foil away, the huge swirl had a delicious scent that reminded me of Christmas. 

The Collective yoghurt is great quality as always; thick, creamy and rich. It's thick enough that it feels like you're eating a Greek yoghurt just without any of the tang but not so thick that it ends up being a chore to eat it. I'd say easily the nicest commercial plain yoghurt I've eaten. 

The gingerbread syrup is amazing. It's very thick, rich and sweet with a gritty texture. It is gluten free but the Collective have included breadcrumbs made from rice and potato flour. This really makes it feel like you're eating crushed up gingerbread - some of the little pieces were big enough to get a proper chew on. The flavour is delicious, a warm, slightly spiced (hello again cinnamon!) proper gingerbread flavour. It's quite sweet but like with yesterday's review the sweetness is balanced out by the rich warmth and depth of the flavour. 

It mixes in with the plain yoghurt perfectly and I was impressed, as I always am with these tubs, that the gingerbread was consistent thoughout and I had barely any layers with just plain yoghurt. You could easily portion this out over a few servings and get an equal helping of both parts in each one. 

I really like this flavour, another good Autumn/Winter flavour and it tasted to me like Christmas, not long now.....

8/10 

Candy Kittens - Sour Grape & Wild Strawberry

Last year I reviewed Candy Kittens Sour Watermelon and Eton Mess, the thing that let the bags down most (apart from Sour Watermelon being quite dull) was the price and the fact they were a Waitrose exclusive. I spotted three new bags in Sainsburys this week and OK they're slightly smaller but they are a much more reasonable price too. 

Candy Kittens are a bit of a fancy bag of sweets, or gourmet candy to use their own terms. The sweets are all naturally flavoured, gluten free and made using real fruit juice and natural ingredients. 

I tried Sour Grape first, Grape isn't a flavour I've noticed is used too much in our sweets, I wonder why? 

All the varieties I've tried have the same somewhat soft but still chewy texture and are quite large for this style of sweet. 

The grape sweets aren't too vibrantly coloured but that's what I'd expect with natural ingredients. 

I could smell the grape, they smelt sweeter rather than sour and the taste was along the same lines. It's quite mild and not really very sour but it's still a lovely flavour. If you're specifically looking for the grape then this isn't a sweet to be eaten a couple at a time as the flavour doesn't build up enough but by the bagful it was pretty decent just lacking the sourness, I guess that's again to be expected with all natural flavourings. 

Rating 6/10 

I tried Wild Strawberry next, I'm not sure what makes them wild according to Candy Kittens they're rarer and much more fun than the original though? 

These were much brighter than the grape but looking at the flavourings used (radish, carrot, blackcurrant, apple, tomato, pumpkin) bright red is probably a much easier colour to replicate. 

I knew these would be getting a higher rating before I'd even eaten one. The strawberry scent was evident before I'd even completely opened the seal and it was a lovely, sweet, fruity strawberry. 

The taste did live up to expectations here and it had a beautiful, naturally tasting strong strawberry flavour that was just as good from the first one I ate to the very last.

These also had a fizz to them that I hadn't noticed was missing from the grape, overall a delicious little sweet! 

Rating 8/10