Kellogg's 5 Grain Muesli Bars - Chocolate & a Blend of Nuts

I'm trying to wean myself off of Nakd Bars, Mr.1T has also become addicted to the Bakewell Tart flavour and its proving to be a rather expensive habit! 

Not that these were much cheaper thanks to Ocado and their ability to show only the new products in each category.

The 5 Grain Muesli bars are, you guessed it, made with 5 grains - wheat, oats, triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye apparently), rye and barley. There are three flavours and surprise, surprise I chose the Chocolate & a Blend of Nuts flavour. 

Look:

It looks like condensed bird food with a few nuts and some chocolate chunks thrown on top for good measure. There's no point beating about the bush - it does! I could see the blend of nuts throughout the bar, the nuts used are peanuts, almonds and hazelnuts and there seemed a lot more peanuts than the others. 

Smell: 

Initially I thought "ooh that smells chocolatey!" but straight away I realised it's not chocolate like a chocolate bar chocolatey. It smells exactly the same as hot chocolate powder, to be specific Cadbury Highlights hot chocolate powder. The reason for this is probably because the chocolate chunks, strangely, are made using a fat reduced cocoa powder. So it literally was diet chocolate powder I could smell! 

Taste:

The unique selling point of the 5 Grain Muesli bars are that there are 5 grains used, obviously. But there wasn't too much of a difference from other similar cereal bars. It did have a more wholesome, healthy feel to it and it seemed denser and more filling than others but the flavours weren't very apparent. 

 I like my contrasting textures as always, and the nuts add a satisfying crunch through the sticky sweet honey and chewy grains, though the honey does somewhat hide the flavour of the grains, hazelnuts and almonds.Of the three nuts, the peanuts have by far the strongest flavour but it was obvious there was a mix - personally I'd have preferred the other two but I know I'm in a minority there!

The chocolate was fine, I don't remember anything too cheap or sickly tasting but I just could not get the idea of hot chocolate out of my head! I really think it tastes how eating hot chocolate would but that could well be my nostrils tricking my taste buds!

7/10 

KP Grazing Mix - Red Berry & Nut Crunch

A mix of roasted unsalted nuts, dried fruits & oat clusters

I wasn't going to review the KP grazing mix as they're not new but my last nut posts have gone down ever so well on Twitter.... I knew you all had filthy minds.

 I had a quick Google and didn't see this particular bag from the range reviewed before so why not! 

The mix is mostly unsalted roasted peanuts with a few unsalted roasted almonds chucked in for good measure, dried sweetened cranberry pieces, oat clusters and golden raisins.

Although there are double the amount of peanuts all I could smell was oats. If I shut my eyes I'd swear I'd opened my big bag of Tesco everyday value (they taste just the same and they're 75p for 1Kg!) oats.

As always I tried one of each first, the dried cranberry pieces were nice and big, not very dry and were quite chewy but still somewhat firm; they almost felt like raisins. The front of the bag says this is a red berry mix with dried fruits but the back says sweetened cranberry and there are only cranberry pieces inside. Even more confusingly the ingredients list the cranberry as red berry flavoured sweetened cranberry pieces!? These don't taste exclusively of cranberry, they have a mixed berry flavour and while they do taste lovely (although very sweet) I don't understand why KP didn't just put a variety of dried berries in Cranberries must be cheaper.. 

Both the peanuts and almonds tasted as expected, the almonds were very crunchy and the peanuts slightly softer. The same with the taste of the large oat clusters but they were surprisingly crunchy, more so than the almonds. Finally the golden raisins were pretty small and chewy, they had a nice flavour and were sweet but not as sweet as the cranberry. 

None were great alone, the raisins are probably the best of the bunch and all mixed together they aren't much better. The fruit and raisins add some much needed sweetness to the dry, plain oats and nuts but this mix is seriously missing the salt. It was so dry and plain to eat, I know it sounds stupid - salt would make it drier surely, but it was just so boring. Plain nuts and plain oats, it was just too much plain. The sweeter pieces broke it up a little but the dry boring-ness was overpowering. 

They'd be OK I suppose if you were on a health kick - full of protein and fibre and less salt than other similar bags but I won't be buying these again. 

5/10 

KP Frosted Honey Roast Nut Selection

A delectable combination of Honey Roast peanuts & cashews mixed with pieces of Belgian Milk Chocolate Honeycomb 

I always forget how much I love nuts. And you've all got filthy minds. 

I avoid eating them in pubs, I read a study about how many people don't wash their hands after using the toilet and you don't even want to know what they found all over those little bowls of nuts at the bar! I inhale the bags of Marmite nuts when I actually remember to buy some and a couple of Christmas's ago I was fighting a guest for the big bowl we put out - joke was on him, it was my mum and dads house and I knew where they kept the rest that didn't fit! 

Well it's nearly Christmas again and as my eyes are always peeled for anything unfamiliar on the shelves, I spied this bag of KP mixed nuts amongst the usual suspects. I saw nuts, chocolate and Christmas trees so that was me sold! 

,

My first handful was a mixture of nuts, salty as expected but with a sweet, honey flavour. The two nuts chosen went well together and I could feel as well as taste the difference between the peanuts and cashews. 

Mr.1T took himself a large bowlful first and so I was left with the dregs of the bag, some of the chocolate honeycomb pieces were so small I couldn't taste them against the lovely honey flavour of the nuts but the texture of the crunchy honeycomb stood out and although that's three different types of crunch it wasn't missing any chew. The larger pieces were a different ball game all together. The chocolate used is of a good quality and I could taste them at last against the strong salty, honey flavours. I always find with any nuts (as with the Walkers Marmite crisps!) it doesn't matter what you eat with/before/after them, it's always the nuts you can taste for a while after but surprisingly the sweet, milky chocolate was what hung around each each bite. 

It didn't come as a shock then, that after the strong honey, salty, chocolate flavours that any honeycomb taste was lost in the mix. The texture was noticable but they really could benefit from being a bit bigger. 

I know trail mixes and the like are big buisness over in the US, I've seen ones sold with proper M&M's in, I'm not sure why mixed bags of nuts/chocolate hasn't really taken off here yet but I'm hoping it does soon. In the meantime I'll be trying the other bag in the KP range and making my own for sure! 

7/10 

Loy Koy Maki

I won't lie, I had no clue what this was until I ate it. Loy Koy Maki is ungoogleable apparently and was part of the little welcome pack we got in the hotel we stayed in but I did see identical boxes without the hotel logo on sold in every shop out there. I'm pretty sure it's Loukoumi, the Greek version of Turkish delight. 

I had 2 smallish sized pieces in my box both separately wrapped, I was going to try one but ripped both open and as it turns out that was a good choice! They were extremely messy - that white sugar dusting is all over my clothes, the table, the dog... And very soft and squidgy. 

I went for the smaller first as everyone knows you leave the biggest till last! Texture wise it was like Turkish Delight, with quite a soft jelly but still enough to give a little chew. The taste was a bit of a let down, it was sweet and nice enough but I couldn't tell you what flavour it's supposed to be. 

Then I had the second, the box clearly says this is honey mix nuts and there was definitely none of that in the first I tried so it looks like I got a bit of a mix up! This one had a firmer texture and was a lot thicker to chew through even the bites without any nuts. The flavour was a decent honey, not too strong but noticable and the nuts were crunchy and it all made for an interesting chew. 

That said, there was something not quite right with the honey nuts one, I can't quite put my finger on what, but I do prefer the unknown flavoured square. 

I understand this is a cheap, mass produced version of the authentic stuff and while I'm quite glad I didn't pay for this it has encouraged me to try the real deal now. 

Rating 6/10 

Greek Kataifi

I've just returned from my honeymoon, a beautiful week in Crete where I didn't actually eat many sweet things at all - it must say something when me and my husband (aaaah!!) with the worlds sweetest teeth turn down the dessert buffet in favour of more of what must be the worlds freshest fruit, vegetables, salad, fish and meats. I made sure to bring home some Cretan goodies though to make up for missing out and I'm glad I did - the 'fresh' food I'm buying back home now tastes like cardboard in comparison! 

The first souvenir I opened was handmade nuts and chocolate Kataifi. The box describes Kataifi as 'a sweet made of Kataifi pastry and contains a filling of nuts, usually pistachios, walnuts or almonds; it is sweetened with honey'  So really a Greek version of baklava and I chose the nuts and chocolate variety. 

The box contained three decently sized rectangular blocks which were all individually wrapped.  I don't know anything really about the company which produced these - Greek Horizons - other than they're a Greek company based in Crete, I'm guessing their market is mainly tourists based on the types of shops I saw these boxes being sold but despite this they smelt and felt very fresh and luxurious once I'd removed them. 

They smelt extremely sweet, but not artificially sugary sweet more of a lovely honey scent. The pastry was very sticky and flaky and I made more than a mess plating them up!! 

The pastry itself is crisp yet still soft and chewy. It didn't leave me with a dry mouth at all unlike other types of pastry and this wouldn't actually need any filling to be perfectly delicious on its own. The traditional Kataifi is made with honey, this mass produced version uses a mixture of vegetable oils and sugars but a mixture of flavours, including cinnamon curiously, gave the flavour of honey though I did find it to taste extremely sweet - even for me! 

The assorted nuts take up 5% and the chocolate only 3% so the flavour was mild but noticeable with each mouthful. They were overpowered by the syrupy sweetness for the majority of each bite though. At first I was disappointed there was only three in a pack but by the time I'd eaten those I was quite glad for it, anymore would be too much and these are definitely an in moderation treat or they would get too sickly. 

Rating 6/10 

Tasty but I'm not even really a Baklava or pastry anything fan usually.