American M&M's Part 1

I've decided to split the M&M's post I have into two, one gigantic post would be a bit too long. I'll be kicking off part one with Birthday Cake flavour, Peanut Butter flavour and Keebler and M&M bite size cookies. 

Random fact - did you know Mars have actually trademarked the letter M? I didn't but there's a stern warning of this on the back of the packets! 

Birthday Cake M&Ms 

I was very sceptical about the Birthday Cake flavour M&Ms. How can they make an M&M taste like cake? So naturally they were the variety I tried first. Overall they seemed a bit bigger than any normal M&Ms I've eaten recently and at first they just smelt of chocolate. That's probably because one got a bit busted in transit, so you can see under the shell they aren't anything different to look at. 

These taste strange! Not a bad strange but Mars have come through on the birthday cake. Don't get me wrong there is no way on earth you'd think you were eating an actual birthday cake - the  fact it's an M&M should see to that - but there is something, and I really don't knowk what, that is so reminiscent of birthday cake. Maybe it's the flavours from the frosting on cakes, or the cake itself or I really just don't know but the more I ate the more it tasted like birthday cake. 

There were some that were more chocolatey but the general flavours of the bag were these weird - am I imagining this - birthday cake tastes. They definitely didn't taste like a standard milk chocolate M&M. 

I was all ready to rate these 7/10, however they are extremely sweet and I did notice the sweetness at the start of the bag but it wasn't too big of a deal to begin with. Sometimes I read other bloggers say they've eaten something that is so sweet it makes their throat burn and to tell you the truth I've never had a clue what they were on about. Until this bag! It's only a small bag, not quite 40g but about half way through the sweetness was nearly unbearable! I actually thought to myself "now I know what they mean!" It wasn't enough to stop me polishing the rest of but I'm a total sugar fiend. I wouldn't be able to eat one of the massive bags the Americans sell though! 

In moderation - 7/10. Too many at once 6/10 

Peanut Butter M&Ms 

My usual method of eating anything is least to most favourite so Peanut Butter flavour had to be next. Again they seemed quite large - maybe the M&Ms made in the U.S.A just are bigger? I didn't really notice any peanut related scent from the bag but they didn't smell as chocolatey as the Birthday Cakes either. 

You can see the texture of the peanut butter even in the photo. It's thick and quite gritty but almost melts away to a creamy consistency. Infact it's so thick I bit into one and this happened - 

- my M&M ended up innard-less! It creeped me out - it looks like a dead Pacman! As a self proclaimed peanut butter (note only peanut butter not peanuts in general) hater I wasn't looking forward to the overwhelming flavour that seems to take over everything it comes into contact with. That didn't happen here though, it's strong - there's no mistaking what it is at all - but it really blended well with the chocolatey candy shell. Surprisingly I really enjoyed this flavour, the slight saltiness it had to it made for a very addictive taste and unlike before I was a bit sad when I realised I'd eaten them all! 

I need to rethink my stance on peanut butter after these and the Ben & Jerry's I think! 

Rating 8/10 

Keebler made with M&M's Cookies 

While American run of the mill chocolate (namely Hershey's) leaves a lot to be desired, the same can't be said for their cookies. I'm not talking about what they call a cookie, which seems to be anything to do with a biscuit - see Oreo, but what we Brits call a cookie. Mainly chocolate chip cookies. I've yet to try one I've not enjoyed, be it cheap and cheerful or a bit more luxurious.  These M&M cookies are made with Keebler cookies, a brand I have heard of before and claim to be bite size. 

If you've tried mini Maryland cookies I would say they are bite size, the M&M cookies I had were probably about one and a half times the size of those and there were a decent amount in the 45g pouch. 

They smelt mainly of cookies, you know the smell and even though they had been crushed in transit, were mainly thick and chunky. To be totally truthful it was a little off putting seeing such bright blue pieces in some of the cookies! It's not a colour we use that much over here and it reminded me of the plasters you have to wear in food production and service but my brain works in strange ways like that. 

The cookies were lovely, they mainly held their shape but biting into them they were crunchy and crumbly and tasted sweet and buttery. There were chocolate chips aswell as M&M's which added a sweet chocolate flavour to the tasty biscuit too. You can taste the M&Ms in flavour but the texture is a little lost in an already crunchy biscuit. I think if texture alone is the major factor then these would have worked better in a thinner or softer biscuit but as it was the biscuit was tasty enough that I didn't mind loosing out on the bite of the crisp M&M's. 

Rating 7/10 

Oreo - Peanut Butter & Golden flavours

I'm thinking of doing a themed week this week as I seem to have found myself surrounded by American snacks, chocolate and sweets.

I haven't had very good past experiences with chocolate from the USA so fingers crossed some of the stuff I'll be trying this week will be better! 

I've decided to kick the week off with two different flavoured Oreos. Now they're not new really, both have been available over the pond for years now I think, and they have been sold here in the UK but at extortionate prices. The people behind Oreo have decided to sell these over here now as a standard biscuit rather than an import for a while. 

The reason I've avoided any other flavoured Oreos before is I couldn't justify paying those prices when I consider the original Oreo a slight step up to the (South African apparently?) Romany Cream you get in the Mcvities biscuit barrels at Christmas and in my honest (controversial) opinion not as tasty as its English cousins the Bourbon and Custard Cream. 

Vanilla and peanut butter aren't flavours I usually look for in my biscuits but at 54p a pack in Morrisons they were a bit of a bargain! 

I don't know about anyone else but I have specific ways I like to eat certain things. Anything like an Oreo, Bourbon etc. has to be pulled apart, hopefully getting a clean break and all the cream on one biscuit and then the cream is either licked or bitten away or I use the plain biscuit as a scoop. I'm strange I know. For the sake of reviewing though, I only ate half like that and ate the other half 'properly'. 

I started with the Peanut Butter flavour, as another of my habits means I have to eat from least favourite (flavour, texture, colour) to most and if you've read my blog before you'll know I'm not too keen on peanut butter.

At first sniff, while the biscuits were still in the packet the main scent was of the cocoa biscuits and they smelt like an ordinary Oreo. Once I'd separated the halves and got to the cream though that changed. The peanut butter cream was all I could smell, as I avoid it I can't tell you wether it smells authentic but that didn't end up mattering really anyway. As per the rules I tried the cream first. My first thought was why is it gritty? Again I'm not sure if it's a supposed to be a crunchy peanut butter or if some biscuit crumbs had crept in but it was an unexpected texture. 

The flavour of the cream was very peanutty and just as expected but the issue came when I ate the biscuit as intended. The cocoa flavour overwhelmed the peanut completely, there was a mild taste of peanut butter at the very start and end of each mouthful but the majority was cocoa. 

Good for me and my 54p wasn't wasted - I'll eat the rest but not so good if you're a peanut butter lover. These would probably suit the Double Stuff Oreos better.

6/10 

Next up is as the Golden Oreo, a biscuit with vanilla filling. They smelt very sweet in the pack and unlike the former I could smell the vanilla before I'd split the halves. 

After the strength of the peanut butter, the vanilla taste was lacking in the cream. It wasn't anywhere near as strong as it smelt and in comparison seemed quite plain. 

The biscuits are sweet but the description just calls them sandwich biscuits so there's no vanilla to be found there. Eaten as a whole, again the vanilla was more of an aftertaste and it's tasty but not strong enough for my liking.  

Rating 6/10

Just as an end note, these are the two flavours Unilever have chosen to give us. 

These are the flavours the USA or the rest of the world have - Chocolate, Coconut Delight, Strawberry Milkshake, Strawberry, Green Tea, Lemon Ice, Creamsicle, Ice Cream Rainbow Sherbert, Reeses Peanut Butter, Double Delight (2 flavours), Cool Mint Creme, Banana Split, Dulche De Leche, Birthday Cake, Birthday Cake Fudge Dipped Vanilla, Gingerbread, Lemon Twist, Neapolitan, Watermelon, Limeade, Fruit Punch, Cookie Dough, Caramel Apple, Pumpkin Spice, Red Velvet, Cotton Candy, S'mores, Root Beer Float, Key Lime Pie, Marshmallow Crispie, Cookies & Creme, Fudge Covered and White Fudge Covered. 

And those are the two they gave us. 

Ben & Jerry's Utter Peanut Butter Clutter cookie core

Last but by no means least in the new cookie core range from Ben & Jerry's is Utter Peanut Butter Clutter, a peanut butter ice cream with peanut butter cookies & a crumbled peanut butter cookie core. I reviewed the previous two, speculoos and chocolate version last week. 

Being completely honest this ice cream looked boring compared to any other Ben & Jerry's when I took the lid off. Sure there are some nice peanut butter specks in there but it looked a bit plain. 

Digging in, I found this wasn't true at all. The peanut butter core stands out but I think it's a case of the cookie pieces and the ice cream being near identical in colour but they're there alright! 

I didn't find the ice cream very strong at first, but it soon kicked in and as with the other Ben and Jerry's peanut butter flavours, it's rich, creamy and although I hate peanut butter normally very enjoyable. The core and cookies are very peanut buttery and while I found the cookies have the type of flavour I don't like - the only way I can describe it is roof of the mouth smacking - the texture went well with the crunchy core. The core itself is also strong but the texture completely changes it from me and takes the part away I hate and just leaves the flavour. 

As with the previous two the texture of the cookie core range are what are make these tubs. I certainly didn't expect to prefer the Peanut flavour to the chocolate but there's a first for everything and this is a very nice tub in my opinion. 

Rating 7/10