Kev's Snack Reviews

A big thankyou to Monster Sweets who once again kindly sent me a few bars to try from their European import range. I've been itching to try these new "Frühlings Spezialtät" (Spring Speciality) Ritter Sport bars ever since I heard about them, and they're not very easy to find, so kudos to Monster Sweets for importing them!

You can check out Monster Sweets' range of Ritter Sport flavours which includes "Cookies & Cream", "Kakaosplitter" and "à la Crema Catalana", as well as the Milka with TUC & LU that I reviewed previously, here:

http://www.monstersweets.co.uk

Crema Catalana:

This Ritter Sport bar is quite simply an amazing bar of chocolate. I had high expectations to start with but it far exceeded them; it was very, very delicious! It's one of those bars you just have to try, especially if you like Ritter Sport.

I must admit I initially didn't know what Crema Catalana is, but according to wikipedia it is a dessert very similar to Crème Brûlée, and is traditionally served on St Joseph's Day (March the 19th).

Opening the wrapper I was met with a delicious creamy butterscotch smell. It was hard photographing the bar because I just wanted to dig in and eat it straight away! As you can see the cream filling is a light golden colour;

The taste was amazing! Really creamy, luxurious and rich. The Catalana cream filling had a heavy butterscotch/caramel flavour, but wasn't too sweet or overpowering; just really creamy and the flavour was balanced beautifully with the alpine milk chocolate. It was very moreish, but I managed to control myself and enjoyed eating it slowly. I savoured every piece, something I don't often do with chocolate.

Overall, this is a very special bar from Ritter and one I will definitely buy again. I hope it remains a permanent edition, because it sure deserves to be!

Kakaosplitter:

This was also a very tasty bar. It's a milk chocolate bar with a cocoa cream filling, crunchy cacao nibs and hazelnut-almond pieces. The cream filling was very rich and chocolatey, with the cacao nibs making it crunchy and moreish. I enjoyed that it was very chocolate-focused without being boring or having anything distract from the chocolate flavour. The hazelnut-almond pieces simply added a nice crunch along with the cacao nibs. Like the Catalana bar, I savoured every piece. It wasn't as amazing as the Crema Catalana (which is testament to just how nice that one was, really), but it was a damn fine bar in its own right.

Overall, the Kakaosplitter is a delicious bar with a good combination of rich chocolatey flavours, smooth filling and crunchy cacao pieces, and a nice addition to the new Ritter Sport Spring range.

Overall:

It's such a shame that Ritter Sport bars aren't more widely available in the UK - something I am always ranting about, as my Twitter followers will know! - because they produce excellent quality chocolate that outshines a lot of stuff on UK shelves. They consistently bring out new, interesting flavours that are almost always a pleasure to eat. These two new varieties are great examples of that, and the Crema Catalana in particular is a real gem of a bar.

Once again, many thanks to Monster Sweets for sending me these bars and providing such a varied range of imported snacks and sweets.

You can buy the new Ritter Sport Spring varities including the Cookies & Cream flavour, as well as many others, here:

http://www.monstersweets.co.uk

*These bars were sent to me for an honest review and all views herein are my own.

Whilst in Asda recently I picked up these Cadbury Honeycomb Fabulous Fingers as a quick snack to go with a cuppa. Incase you haven't seen them already, they also come in a Praline variety, as well as the regular Fabulous Fingers variety. They're on special offer in most supermarkets at the moment.

Like the original Fabulous Fingers, these are coated in a layer of white chocolate as well as milk chocolate, which is supposed to be what makes them "fabulous". I think it makes them a bit... "cheap", to be quite honest, as it's an excuse to add extra sugar. The difference with these compared to the regular Fabulous Fingers is the honeycomb flavour biscuit, which is a tasty change from the original shortcake Fingers, but lacked that "shortcake charm" of the originals, if you know what I mean. They're still very addictive though, and most people will enjoy them. They make a nice change-up from regular Cadbury Fingers, and the differences in taste between the milk and white chocolate coatings are very pleasant, if a bit sweet.

I'm curious if the Praline variety is any good, so if anyone has tried those please do leave a comment!

Price: 99p at Asda
Nutritional facts: Contains gluten, milk & soya.

Whilst in WH Smith recently, I saw this Thorntons Bramble Bunny next to the magazines and bought it on impulse, as you do. It's really nothing too special or amazing, except...it contains coconut oil in the chocolate filling. I have to commend Thorntons for that, because coconut oil is far healthier than the vegetable fat companies usually use in products like this, so I felt a bit more comfortable eating it.

Aesthetically, he's a smiley, cute little bunny and probably better looking than a lot of chocolate bunnies I've seen in shops this year. How can you not smile when looking at him? Such a shame he was about to get eaten...

Taste-wise, the Bramble Bunny was very pleasant: creamy, chocolatey, and just about what you would expect really. Thorntons chocolate has a "comforting" kind of taste, I would say, and the creamy chocolate filling just added to that feeling.

Overall, this Thorntons Bramble Bunny is a delicious and creamy Easter treat. I would imagine it's a step up in quality from Cadbury and Nestle's Easter offerings and would recommend it as a good-quality alternative to most similarly-priced Easter snacks, except perhaps the Malteaster Bunny which is King of Easter Bunnies!

Price: 79p at WH Smith, 60p at Asda.
Description: Milk chocolate with smooth chocolate filling.
Nutritional facts: Contains coconut oil and butteroil, as well as milk, and no gluten-containing ingredients.

Cadbury's Egg 'N' Spoon has been reviewed by most of my fellow bloggers by now, but I thought I would do my own review because despite being quite skeptical of them initially, I ended up really enjoying them! Firstly, you must check out this hilarious review of them by Gobble Monkey if you haven't done so already, it's comedy genius!

Part of the reason I was so skeptical of these was the price. The RRP is £3.99, which works out at about £1 per egg! Crazy! Luckily most shops are now selling them for the more reasonable price of £2, which is what these were at Morrisons. I chose the milky mousse variety over the chocolate as I thought it'd be more interesting.

I have to say...this is a genius marketing idea from Cadbury/Mondelez. Eating chocolate eggs from a purple "egg box" with a spoon is a really fun experience! It wouldn't surprise me if they are a huge sales success.

Taking the eggs out, firstly you have to unwrap the foil and then bite off the top section of the egg, revealing the creamy mousse centre. And then, using the spoon provided...scoop away! The centre was smooth and creamy as expected, with a delicious vanilla taste, but I was surprised that it also tasted of white chocolate. It was like a cross between vanilla mousse and white chocolate, and tasted really yummy! After I had scooped out all the filling I ate the remaining chocolate shell, which still had some mousse stuck to it. It was very tasty.

Then I immediately moved onto the next egg - I wanted more of that delicious creamy mousse! After two of these I couldn't really handle any more, so had a break and ate the remaining two later in the day.

Overall, I think these Cadbury Egg 'N' Spoons are a fantastic idea, and they really do make for a fun Easter experience. Just don't pay more than £2 for them! (Morrisons and Asda are your best bet, although I hear they may be even cheaper at Tesco. If you've found these for less than that, please do leave a comment and let me know).

I've also seen a Norwegian "Marabou" version of these in B&M Bargains for 99p. Like Cadbury, Marabou is also a Kraft-owned brand, and the eggs taste pretty similar. Here is a pic of the box. That bunny and those chicks sure know where the good stuff is at!:

I'll probably do a comparison review of them shortly, so stay tuned for that!

What did you think of Cadbury Egg 'N' Spoons? Good idea or not?

Price: £2 at Morrisons.
Nutritional facts: Contains milk and soya.

When I saw this Milka Cherry Cream in my local Polish store I was a bit hesitant to buy it. My first review for this blog was for the Milka Raspberry Cream, and it was rather disappointing. So I wasn't jumping for joy when I found this. However I grudgingly bought it in the hope it might be an improvement on the Milka Raspberry Cream. And luckily it was, but only just.

Opening the wrapper I was met with a strong artificial cherry smell. No surprise there then! Cutting into the bar revealed an impressive amount of cherry jam filling sat above the white cream. It looked almost like it does on the wrapper, which is quite rare in chocolate bars!:

The smell of artificial cherry was quite overpowering. Biting into a piece of the chocolate, it tasted as I expected - extremely sweet and artificial. But...it wasn't too bad. I kind of enjoyed the cherry flavour, even though the artificial sweetness became too much after a few blocks.

There is no English on the pack, so I can't comment on the ingredients.

Overall, this is an improvement on the Milka Raspberry Cream, and I enjoyed it for a "cheap chocolate". But I can't really recommend it, it's a bit too sweet and there's much better chocolate out there.

Price: I can't actually remember, sorry! But I found it in my local Polish store.

No, this isn't a competition to win a Holiday with Nestlé, it's a review of their Turkish "Holiday" marshamallow biscuits!

I found these in B&M Bargains, and couldn't resist buying them just for the name. They're described as "compound chocolate coated marshamallow biscuit", which had me a bit worried because I intensely dislike compound chocolate. They looked and sounded like a cheaper version of the famous Wagon Wheels, although unlike Wagon Wheels they have wavy edges:

Surprisingly, they tasted quite different to Wagon Wheels - they were coconut flavoured. This wasn't mentioned on the front of the pack, but my senses were telling me they tasted of coconut so I checked the ingredients and sure enough, coconut was listed as one of the flavourings.

They didn't taste too bad to be honest. Quite sweet, and the compound chocolate coating tasted rather cheap as you would expect, but the strong coconut flavour from the mallow saved them and made them quite moreish. The biscuit had a decent crunch to it whilst the mallow was nice and chewy.

Overall, if you happen to see these and are partial to Wagon Wheels and/or coconut, I would recommend giving them a try. They're not too bad at all for the price.

Price: 69p for a box of 8 biscuits at B&M Bargains.
Nutitional facts: Contains milk, gluten and "viscosity enhancer" beef gelatine.
Origin: Nestlé Turkey.

Whilst browsing Lidl after Christmas I came across these Rum-Marzipan Nuggets. They must have been leftover Christmas stock as there were only two packs left, so I quickly snapped one up.

I'm not the greatest lover of marzipan but the knobbly, blocky shapes of these really intrigued me. They're basically little nuggets of rum flavoured marzipan, coated in a thin layer of dark chocolate, and then coated again in a layer milk chocolate and chopped hazelnuts.

I wasn't expecting much from them to start with, but they tasted even worse than I'd imagined. I'm not sure if it was due to importing, or simply because of the rum flavouring, but they just tasted bitter and unpleasant to me. The rum flavouring was overpowering and artificial, and was all I could taste. There wasn't much taste from the chocolate or nuts, just an overall stale bitterness.

I quickly disposed of the rest in the bin. It's a shame, because they really do look kinda cool.

Overall, I'm not sure whether this was a one-off or if this is just a bad product, but I really didn't like these at all! If I see some more Erasmi products I might give them a try, but I'm not too excited at the prospect after trying these.

Whilst in B&M Bargains recently I was quite bemused when I spotted these odd novelty sweets called Jellyatrics. According to the pack they're to celebrate 90 years of jelly babies (and yes, that is a set of false teeth you can see in the pic):

For readers outside the UK who may not have heard of jelly babies, they are a classic British jelly sweet that is usually coated in starch powder. They're also Doctor Who's favourite sweet. According to wikipedia, they were created by Bassett's in 1918 and were originally called "Peace Babies" to mark the end of World War 1. Production was suspended during World War 2 due to wartime shortages, and they were re-launched as "Jelly Babies" in 1953. For more on their history see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jelly_Babies

Unlike jelly babies, Jellyatrics are based on old-aged pensioners, and have their own names: Bill Bird ("Binoculars at the ready"), Mister Miser ("Penny pinching pensioner"), Pearl Stitch ("Speed knitting champion"), Frau Zimmer ("Legs like jelly") and Benny Dorm ("Karaoke king of the Costas").

I really liked the concept of these and think they're a fun take on jelly babies. It surprised me that they're not made by Bassett's though, since they're to celebrate 90 years of jelly babies (the packet says "Specially packed for Barnack Confectionery Ltd"). They have a facebook page set up in 2011 and a website which still seems to be under construction.

The jellies only look vaguely like pensioners. Which is probably a good thing, as the thought of eating granny-shaped sweets is a bit weird, but then you could say the same of jelly babies, I guess. They're coated in starch powder, which according to wikipedia is "...left over from the manufacturing process where it is used to aid release from the mould". Nothing like a starch-coated pensioner!

Taste-wise, they were pleasantly sweet and fruity, and chewier in texture than Bassett's Jelly Babies, which I guess is fitting. I shared them with my family and we all enjoyed them whilst giggling at the names.

Overall, I think Jellyatrics are a fun product and they taste pretty good. They're great for a giggle and a nice snack for sharing. So go on, gobble a grandad or gnaw a nanny!

Nutritional facts: Contains beef (or horse?) gelatin, plus nettle & spinach concentrates.
Price: 99p at B&M Bargains.

I was a big fan of vanilla coke when it was launched in the early '00s, and when it was axed I thought it was gone for good. It's not the sort of flavour you would really expect to be popular - citrus or cherry seem to be more commonly paired with cola - so I wasn't expecting a return any time soon.

Thankfully I was wrong, because it's now back on shelves after a 6 year absence! According to Coca Cola UK there's been a big demand from consumers to bring it back, and they have listened.

I've been searching for this ever since I read about it, and actually passed it by a couple of times in Tesco because it looked almost identical to the regular bottles of Coca Cola there. There isn't really much to distinguish it apart from a beige streak and swirly symbol on the label, and I had to look closely to notice the word vanilla.

Taste-wise it wasn't quite as good as I remember. It tasted sweet with just the faintest hint of vanilla giving it a smoother, more rounded taste than regular Coca Cola, but it didn't taste all that different to be honest.

Overall, it's great to see Vanilla Coke make a return, but I think it should have a more pronounced vanilla flavour. Maybe I'm just looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses, but I remember it being much nicer. I'm pretty sure there also used to be a diet version, which may be the one I'm remembering. If anyone else remembers it please do leave a comment!

Price: £1.15 at Tesco.
Nutrional facts/ingredients: Contains caffeine.

Were you a fan of Vanilla Coke when it was launched, or are you completely new to it? Are you glad it's back? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Welcome to Kev's Easter Bunny Beauty Contest! With many different Easter Bunnies gracing our shelves this year, including a newcomer in the Thorntons Bramble Bunny, I thought I would pit them all against each other to see which looked the best. They were all very bright and shiny whilst "fully clothed" but some failed to live up to their image when unwrapped. I will choose my three favourites and award the winner with a ribbon and bell.

Here are the competitors:

Sainsbury's White Chocolate Bunny:

The Sainsburys bunny clearly didnt feel the need to hide his body, although kept his complexion clear with a protective, air-tight box. It looked like a bunny version of the Popemobile!

I really like this bunny, he looks cute and smiley and the pink ears are a nice touch.

Lindt Gold Bunny:

The Lindt Gold Bunny arrived looking like he had already won, with his red ribbon and bell. This was promptly confiscated.
He's a good-looking bunny, but not quite as detailed as his smaller competitor the M&S Bunny.

Nestlé Milkybar Bunny:

The Milkybar Bunny looks nothing like any bunny I have ever seen before. More like a blob with ears. Null points!

Thorntons Bramble Bunny:

The Bramble Bunny is in fine nick; he's smiley and cute and exactly what you would expect from an Easter bunny! I'm not sure what those blobs on his belly are though...

Malteaster Bunny:

The Malteaster Bunny unfortunately didn't seem to have a face. Disqualified! (sorry, but this is a beauty contest!)

Cadbury Caramel Bunny:

The Cadbury Caramel Bunny had to be prized away from his twin for the purposes of this contest.
He doesn't look too great to me, his features look like they have been drawn on and those eyes are a little bit creepy!

Marks & Spencer Honeycomb Truffle Crunch Bunny:

The M&S Honeycomb Bunny may be small, but looks pretty good! He's definitely the most detailed and bunny-like competitor of the bunch.

And the runners up are...

Sainsbury's, Thorntons and Marks & Spencer Bunnies.

These guys were by far the three best-looking bunnies of the bunch in my opinion. The Sainsbury's and Thorntons bunnies are smiley and cute, whilst the M&S Honeycomb Bunny is detailed and realistic-looking.

AND THE WINNER IS:

The Sainsbury's White Chocolate Bunny! This guy is smiley, cute, and looks great with his little pink ears. Congratulations!

Most of these bunnies can be found in most major supermarkets. Tesco, Morrisons and Asda didn't seem to have their own brand of small Bunnies so I haven't included them.

I'd be interested to know what your favourite Easter Bunnies are this year, please let me know in the comments!

TASTE-TEST:
For anyone wondering which bunny tasted the best, I would say the Lindt Gold Bunny, with the M&S honeycomb truffle bunny a close second.

Prices: All bunnies except the Lindt Gold Bunny were less than £1.

*Apologies for the poor formatting. It was a nightmare trying to get these pics to align properly!

After hearing about these new Walkers Tiger Nuts via a press release the other day, I was very surprised to find them whilst "on the prowl" (heh heh) in Asda. They're a new range of flavoured peanuts from Walkers with a stripy-patterned crunchy coating, which looks similar to the stripy crust you usually see on Tiger Bread.

The range has 4 flavours: Masala Curry, Smoky Bacon, Salt & Vinegar, and Sweet Chilli. They're currently all on offer for £1 per 130g pack at Asda.

I love the packaging design; it's really funky and eye-catching! The word "Tiger Nuts" doubles up as a tigers face which I think is a really cool idea.

The theme of Tiger Nuts is of course all about tigers, from the patterned shell on the nuts, to the packaging design, and even the descriptions on the packs: Purrrrfect smoky bacon, Fearless salt and vinegar, Exotic sweet chilli, Mighty masala curry. The slogan on the front is "Attack the pack!", with scratch marks doubling up as exclamation marks.

Here are my thoughts on each of the flavours individually:

Masala Curry

MASALA CURRY:
These have a golden yellow shell. The curry flavour is very nice, with hints of coriander, cumin and chilli. Very addictive; this was my favourite flavour of the bunch!

Smoky Bacon

SMOKY BACON:
These have a pink-tinged shell. The bacon flavour is very salty and rich, the kind you usually get with smoky bacon flavour crisps. Combined with the peanuts it was very moriesh and addictive. These were my second favourite flavour.

Salt & Vinegar

SALT & VINEGAR:
These ones have a pale golden shell. The flavour is both sharp and salty as you would expect, but I thought it was a bit overbearing and didn't really work with the peanuts. This was my least favourite flavour.

Sweet Chilli

SWEET CHILLI:
These had an orange-tinged shell. The flavour was nice and spicy but balanced out with the sweetness, which made them very addictive and easy to eat. These are tied with smoky bacon as my second favourite flavour.

A lone Tiger Nut

Overall, I think Tiger Nuts are an excellent product. Great design and branding, interesting concept, fun, and most importantly, tasty! I reckon these might just be a big hit in the snacking world, and it certainly sounds like Walkers expect them to be judging by the press releases.

I had to laugh at the barcode on the pack - it's been made to look like grass with a tiger popping his head up, saying "Suitable for vegetarians":

Price: £1 at Asda.

Nutritional facts/ingredients: Contains Nuts, Wheat, Gluten, Milk, Soya. No artificial preservatives or colours and no MSG. Suitable for vegetarians.

What did you think of Walkers Tiger Nuts? Please let me know in the comments!

Thankyou to Monster Sweets who once again kindly sent me some Ritter Sport bars to review. Monster Sweets are currently stocking the new Ritter Spring Varieties Crema Catalana and Kakaosplitter that I've reviewed previously, plus Milka with Tuc & LU. You can check out their website here:
http://www.monstersweets.co.uk/

Ritter Sport Kokos

Ritter Sport Kokos:
Described as "mit tropischen Kokosraspeln in Kokos-Milch-Fullung, this roughly translates as "with tropical coconut rasps in coconut milk filling".

I was very excited when I first heard about this Ritter Sport Kokos/Coconut. Ritter Sport are great at making bars with creamy fillings, as I found with the Crema Catalana, so a bar with a coconut cream filling sounded amazing! It's quite hard to find coconut cream filled bars; I believe Lindt do one in Europe and even Sainsbury's used to do one in their Taste the Difference range. Lindt also recently launched their Coconut Lindor which are very, very tasty indeed. So how does the Ritter Sport Kokos compare?

Ritter Sport Kokos

Well, it was very delicious! The filling tasted very creamy as I expected, with rasps of coconut running through it, which added a nice bit of crunch. The milk chocolate was of Ritter's usual good quality, and combined with the creamy filling made this an indulgent tasting bar. If you're a fan of coconut chocolate I think you'll enjoy this a lot - it's much more luxurious than a plain old Bounty bar. Infact it reminded me a little of Coconut Lindor, although it's less sweet and more chocolatey than they are.
Overall, an indulgent and creamy bar of chocolate which I will definitely be trying again at some point.

The front of the pack says "Unsere sorte des jahres", which translates to "our sort of year" with google translate. I'm sure that can't be right - I think it's probably meant to be "Variety of the year" or something like that. If anyone knows please do leave a comment!

Ritter Sport Olympia:
I've wanted to try this bar for ages but could never get a hold of it. Apparently it was originally introduced as a limited edition flavour in Germany, discontinued and then brought back due to popular demand. The description translates as "milk chocolate with a yogurt filling containing honey, nuts and dextrose".

Ritter Sport Olympia

I have to say it took me a while to get used to the taste of the yogurt filling. It had a sharp and tangy flavour, which I'm not used to in chocolate bars. I presume yogurt is a more common chocolate bar flavour in Germany as several brands over there seem to have variations of it.

Ritter Sport Olympia

I warmed to the yogurt filling after a few pieces. It had a sweet honey flavour, as well as a nice savoury crunch from the nuts, and the dextrose added an extra sweet crunchiness. I liked the contrast between the crunchy nuts and dextrose pieces with the tangy, creamy filling. It's a unique combination and I can see why there was a demand to bring it back.
Overall, a unique bar of chocolate which I would recommend especially if you're a fan of yogurt.

These bars are available from Monster Sweets, who offer a large range of Ritter Sport bars and good value postage:

http://www.monstersweets.co.uk/

*Monster Sweets sent me these bars for an honest review and all opinions expressed are my own.

Whilst in Asda recently I spotted packs of these new "Magnum Chocolates" near the tills. As far as I know the Magnum brand has never ventured out of ice cream and into confectionery before, so I was very curious to see how they would taste.

The pack contains 3 pieces of chocolate, each with a soft vanilla centre. They're described on the pack as "Vanilla flavoured white chocolate truffle centre with a milk chocolate coating (80%)". The chocolate pieces are shaped somewhat like miniature Magnum ice creams, with the "M" logo printed on them.

They tasted very nice; the chocolate was good quality with a nice rich cocoa flavour, and the vanilla centres were very light and fluffy. They tasted very mousse-y and ice-cream like, infact, and I had to remind myself I was eating chocolate and not ice cream!

After the first piece though I started to get a bit bored of the flavour. It's a bit one-dimensional and doesn't offer much of a "wow" factor, even though it's very pleasant and creamy. I think these would be best as a little snack to go with coffee or shared with friends but I wouldn't want to eat them all in one go.

Overall, it's interesting to see Magnum extending their brand into chocolate, and these are certainly tasty and good quality, however they don't offer enough excitement for me. Maybe if they do some other flavours I'll be more interested.

Price: 65p at Asda.
Nutitional information/ingredients: Contains milk and soya. Suitable for vegetarians.
Cocoa solids: 38% minimum.
Other info on pack: DO NOT FREEZE.

Have you tried Magnum Chocolates? If so what did you think of them?

I was quite excited to find these Pergalé Coconut Centres in Family Bargains recently. After trying the new Lindor Coconut (reviewed here by The Review Addict) and experiencing how delicious coconut truffles can be, these seemed all the more tempting, and interesting too as they are white chocolate coated. The big difference between these and Lindor, apart from the price (they cost £1 for 100g) was the quality - these were much poorer quality. They're like a poor man's Lindor.

The chocolates were wrapped in little wax paper wrappers as well as a shiny outer foil wrapper. I thought this was a nice touch, it reminded me of old fashioned sweets.

Taste-wise, they were very sweet, but also very milky. The filling was a bit sticky, not as smooth as Lindor, and had a weird alcoholic tang to it. It was okay, but not really my thing since I don't like alcoholic chocolates. The coconut taste was pleasant enough, though.

Overall, although these weren't amazing, I didn't hate them either. They made a nice change and are probably worth a try if you happen to see them. I've seen other varieties in discount stores such as hazelnut, so might give those a try next.

Price: £1 at Family Bargains.
Nutritional facts: Contains milk.

Whilst browsing Poundland recently I came across these Toto novelty chocolate eggs. They're like a Nestlé version of Kinder Surprise, so I was curious how they would compare to the real thing. For £1 you get 3 milk chocolate eggs with toys inside that have to be assembled.

I must admit, I haven't bothered to assemble them yet because they were too fiddly and annoying!

Unlike Kinder Surprise, these eggs don't contain a layer of white chocolate, they are just plain milk chocolate eggs.

To my surprise the chocolate tasted quite decent. I wasn't expecting much because Nestlé aren't known for the quality of their chocolate, but it was quite tasty for cheap chocolate.

The capsules inside the eggs snapped open to reveal the toy parts. There's instructions on how to assemble them, but I honestly couldn't be bothered. They looked like something you would get out of a cheap Christmas cracker and didn't seem worth the effort.

Overall, if you're a snacks fan like me then these are just a mild curiosity, but if you have children these eggs are probably a good value treat to keep them happy. I'm not sure how they compare in price to Kinder Surprise, but presumably they are cheaper.

Price: £1 for 3 eggs at Poundland.
Nutritional facts: Contains milk.
Made by: Toto is a Turkish Nestlé brand distributed in the UK.

I've wanted to try these M&S Percy in the Pink chocolates for ages now, even after reading Gobble Monkey's funny review here saying how overly sweet they are. I'm a big fan of the original Percy Pigs; they're basically the best gummy sweets ever made (though with the recent food scandal I do hope horse hasn't somehow ended up in them!), so I was hoping these would be just as good.

They're described as "Flavoured white chocolate with dried raspberry and strawberry concentrates" and cost £1.25 for a 90g bag.

I'm a big fan of coloured and flavoured chocolate, it seems so much fun even though it usually ends up tasting too sweet. I guess I'm still a little kid at heart. So I kind of expected these Percy in the Pink to taste too sweet, and indeed they did. Infact they were as I expected - vaguely fruity, chalky, and very sweet. Underneath all the sweetness there was a hint of creaminess from the white chocolate, but the predominent taste was of sugar and strawberry/raspberry. Which is fun for a while, but you can't eat too much before it becomes overbearing. They're definitely one for the very sweet-toothed, or for children.

Percy waving goodbye before he gets eaten

Overall, although these Percy in the Pink chocolates were very sweet...I kind of enjoyed them. They satisfy a sweet craving pleasantly enough, and there's certainly much worse chocolates out there. That said, with such a large variety of Percy Pig sweets sold in Marks & Spencer, you'll probably want to go for the real thing. The only trouble is that Pery Pigs are so addictive it's easy to eat a whole bag to yourself! (or maybe that's just me?)

More Percy Pig reviews coming soon...

Price: £1.25 at M&S.
Nutritional facts/ingredients: Contains milk, suitable for vegetarians.

When I saw this Laima Miks bar in my local import store I thought it was a Latvian version of Snickers or something. Upon examining the ingredients however, I became a bit more interested as I learnt that it contains apricots, various types of nuts, raisins, dates, coconut, roasted sunflower seeds and even banana chips. This sounded pretty unique to me so I couldn't resist giving it a try!

I certainly didn't expect this to be a bar of what is essentially apricot jelly coated in fake chocolate compound! Dissecting it, I found lots of different nuts and bits of dried fruit embedded in the jelly centre:

"What a bizarre chocolate bar" was my first thought upon tasting this. The apricot jelly had a weird "air freshner" kind of taste, which is the only way I can describe it: fake, artificial and perfumey. It wasn't very pleasant.
The fruit and nuts added a bit of texture to the jelly and were kind of interesting, and even the chocolate compound coating added a little bit of cocoa flavour, but ultimately this bar was just too weird for me. The odd artificial flavour from the jelly was really off-putting and the various fruit and nut elements were hard to detect.

Overall I would file this into the "interesting to try once, but never again" category. I'd be interested to hear from anyone else who has tried this bar, because it's kind of perplexing to me. Who buys this sort of thing? And why? Is it a case of a once-popular brand being cheapened with poor ingredients?

I checked out the Laima website, and their description of this bar (run through google translate) goes something like this:

"When you need energy for mind and body, is useful nutritional bars Mick. Article 42 grams hidden beneath the glaze and delicious jelly, or dried fruits and whole nuts - a real treat, encouragement and energy reserve for any life stage."

So there you have it. This bar is supposed to give you energy for the mind and body, at any life stage. Personally I'd rather have a Snickers!

Price: Around the 50p mark.
Nutritional facts/ingredients: Contains apple, apricot, hazelnuts, raisins, dried dates, almonds, oats, dried banana, coconut ices and roasted sunflower seeds.
Company info: Laima are a Latvian company and "one of the few European producers where full production process from cocoa beans to chocolate is ensured". They recently celebrated their 140th anniversary. I've previously reviewed their "Christmas Chocolate" bar which you can check out here.

There's been a lot of excitement brewing in the snacking world about these new bars from Cadbury. They have already been launched in Australia and are apparently a big hit over there, so Cadbury have decided to launch them here in the UK too.

To my surprise, I found these almost literally on my doorstep at a local Premier store. They were priced marked at 50p per bar, which is an RRP Trial Price. Presumably they will be bumped up in price at a later date.

The wrapper designs are quite cool and very eye catching. I think they look a lot more fun and quirky than regular Dairy Milk bars.

Opening the wrappers I was met with the unmistakable aroma of Cadbury Dairy Milk. I couldn't wait to tuck in! The blocks are irregularly shaped which I think is a nice idea; it adds to the overall "fun" experience of these bars.

Jelly Popping Candy

Jelly Popping Candy Shells:
This bar is described as "Milk chocolate with fruit flavour jellies (6%), sugar coated cocoa candies (6%) and popping candy (4%)".

Jelly Popping Candy

Taste-wise, this bar was delicious if not a bit unusual. The jelly pieces added a lovely fruity chewiness to the creamy chocolate, and the sugar coated candy added a nice bit of crunch. As you would expect, the popping candy crackles in your mouth, giving a weird fizzy sensation.

I guess whether you enjoy this bar or not will depend on whether you like popping candy. Personally I really enjoy it in chocolate, and I mourn the loss of the X-Ploding Smarties bar from years ago (which had a similar concept to this), so I actually enjoyed this bar despite how unusual it is. It's a unique combination of tastes and textures and is very tasty.

Jelly Popping Candy

Cookie Nut Crunch:
This one is described as "Milk chocolate with pieces of biscuit (8%), crunchy almond caramel (5%), and chopped and roasted caramelised hazelnuts (3%)".

Cookie Nut Crunch

There was no weirdness at all from this bar; just familiar delicious flavours. This is undoubtedly the star of the two bars and is one of the nicest new mainstream chocolate bars I've tried in a long time. The combination of flavours and textures is perfect; you've got sweet crunchy caramel, buttery biscuit and caramelised nuts. All of these flavours combined with the creamy Dairy Milk made this a very moreish bar.

Cookie Nut Crunch

Overall:
I enjoyed both of these bars and think they are a great idea from Cadbury. I hope to see new varieties added to the range in the future; perhaps even one with peanut butter? Pretty please, Cadbury?

Price: 50p per 47g bar.
Found at: Premier Stores.
Nutritional facts/ingredients:
Jelly Popping Candy - Conatins milk, wheat, gluten, soya. Suitable for vegetarians.
Cookie Nut Crunch - Contains almonds, hazelnuts, milk, wheat, gluten, soya. NOT suitable for vegetarians.

Today's review comes courtesy of The Grown Up Chocolate Company, who kindly sent me some of their bars for review recently.

The Grown Up Chocolate Co are a small company producing hand-made luxury chocolate bars in small batches using only quality ingredients. They set up their business in 2011 and have grown in popularity ever since. For more info do check out their website here: http://www.thegrownupchocolatecompany.co.uk/about/

The idea behind Grown Up Chocolate Bars is that they're reminiscent of the chocolate bars we ate as children, but with an adult twist. I think they've certainly succeeded - all their bars are like much higher quality versions of a lot of mainstream chocolate bars, for example they do a coconut bar that is similar to a Bounty bar, but is much nicer.

Today's review is for their Fruit & Nut Hunky Dory. Firstly I have to comment on the packaging; the design is very quirky and..."different". I've never seen any chocolate brands use such a concept before, and it certainly stands out. It's not my cup of tea personally, but I'm sure lots of people will appreciate it - let me know what you think in the comments!

The description for this bar set my expectations very high: "A decadent muddle of nuts and fruit on a bed of milk chocolate gianduja, enrobed in luxury milk chocolate". Sounds lovely, doesn't it?

Opening up the box, the chocolate comes in two pieces in a plastic tray. They looked very chunky and knobbly; you can tell they are hand-made because they lack the precision perfection of mainstream chocolate bars. Which is a good thing - I like my chocolates knobbly and chunky!

Biting into one of the pieces I was met with the delicious taste of praline - it was very smooth and nutty. And then the fruit (cranberries and citrus peel) and nuts (hazelnuts and almonds) came to the party, adding chewiness and crunch. They were really fresh, and tasted delightful combined with the praline. My favourite part of the whole bar though was the citrus peel, which I thought was really tasty with the other ingredients and made a lovely change from raisins, which you usually get in chocolate bars. I was a little disappointed there wasn't more of it to be honest.

Make no mistake, this is a very rich and indulgent bar. My only issue was that there was an uneven distribution of fruit and nuts, but I guess that's the charm of handmade chocolates - there's no machines to robotically calculate the exact ratio of ingredients in each bar!

Overall, a lovely indulgent bar from The Grown Up Chocolate Company and one I would love to try again. I wish they were more widely available because I'd happily buy them over most other mainstream chocolate options.

Allergy advice: Contains milk, nuts, soya. May contain traces of gluten and peanuts.
Price: £2.50.

You can check out The Grown Up Chocolate Company's bar range here:

http://thegrownupchocolatecompany.com/acatalog/Our_Delicious_Bars.html

Plus they are also available at Fortnum & Mason and Booths stores.

*The Grown Up Chocolate Company sent me these bars for an honest review and all views expressed are my own.

Please stay tuned for more Grown Up Chocolate Company reviews!

This delicious bar of Lemon and poppy seeds white chocolate is made by Seed & Bean, a company specializing in organic, ethical and fairtrade chocolates. Described as "Italian inspired dreamy white chocolate infused with organic lemon oil from Italy, with a gentle dusting of poppy seeds" it is also hand made and has won a "Great Taste Gold 2011" award.

I'm not that familiar with Seed & Bean but I've seen their bars in Holland and Barrett plenty of times, which is where I bought this. I've wanted to try it for ages now because it's always made me wonder: how does white chocolate, lemon and poppy seeds taste together? Really nice, as it happens!

Opening the wrapper I was met with a delicious creamy lemony scent, like lemon cheesecake. Infact, that's how I would describe this chocolate: "like lemon cheesecake in a bar".

I've never had poppy seeds in chocolate before so this was a new experience for me. And despite there only being 1% poppy seeds, it felt like there were a lot more because they were in every bite of the chocolate.

I thought this bar was lovely. It was sweet as you would expect from white chocolate, but this was tempered by its creaminess and the tartness of the lemon oil, and as well as that there was a slight nutty crunch when biting down on the poppy seeds. All the flavours really worked in tandem together and made for a light, fresh and creamy bar of chocolate. I really enjoyed it!

It brought to mind another, lesser quality bar from many, many years ago: The Kitkat White Lemon and Yoghurt. Does anyone else remember them? It's the only chocolate bar I've ever really eaten that tasted similar to this. But enough of the snacks geekery, because that was a much inferior bar compared to this!

Overall, I think this is a lovely bar of chocolate and if you like light, fresh flavours, I would recommend seeking it out. As well as being organic, ethical and fair trade, it's really tasty!

Price: £2.35 at Holland & Barrett. Seed & Bean are also available at other health food stores.
Ingredients/nutritional facts: Contrains fairtrade ingredients, 1% poppy seeds and 1% Sicilian lemon oil.
Allergy advice: Contains soya and milk. Wheat & Gluten free. May contain traces of nuts. Suitable for vegetarians.

Ritter Sport Crema Catalana & Kakaosplitter (via @Monster_Sweets)

Overall:

Cadbury Fabulous Honeycomb Fingers

Thorntons Easter Bramble Bunny

Cadbury Egg 'N' Spoon Milky Mousse (& Marabou Eggs)

Milka Cherry Cream

Nestlé Holidays

Erasmi Rum-Marzipan Nuggets

Jellyatrics: Celebrating 90 years of Jelly Babies

Vanilla Coca Cola is back! (UK)

Kev's Easter Bunny Beauty Contest

Walkers Tiger Nuts - Masala Curry, Smoky Bacon, Salt & Vinegar, Sweet Chilli

Ritter Sport Coconut & Ritter Sport Olympia

Magnum Chocolates (not ice cream!)

Pergalé Coconut Centres

Nestlé Toto Eggs

M&S Percy Pig Percy In The Pink

Laima Miks Bar

Cadbury Marvellous Creations: Jelly Popping Candy & Cookie Nut Crunch

The Grown Up Chocolate Company Fruit & Nut Hunky Dory

Seed & Bean Lemon & Poppy Seeds White Chocolate