Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte Instant (Ocado) By @cinabar

It is almost September, and this marks the occasion of my first Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte, albeit in the form of an instant sachet. It still counts!

So, in honour of autumn, I opened up the box and gosh, it had a lot of air in it. There were only four sachets, so I checked to see if they had missed some, but no, that is all there is supposed to be. The Nescafé ones have seven or eight sachets, so this feels a little sad. The photo really does make the box look as empty as it felt!

I added the sachet, a quarter of the box, to my mug, and it mixed well with the hot water with no lumps. 

The flavour was gorgeous. I love these sorts of spices, so coffee with cinnamon and nutmeg is just divine. It is a proper autumnal drink: coffee, a touch of sweetness and warming spices. What could be more perfect?

Well, having more sachets in the box, I guess.

Minion Flavoured Sour Lemon Jammie Dodgers [@NLi10]

The latest minions movie - &monsters - was a love letter to cinema, it’s well worth a watch. And as expected there were tie in foods. Here we have - biscuits!

And sour lemon ones at that. But not too sour - that would break people 

Or is that the minions goal - to assume the shape of biscuits and terrorise everyone?

nah - they look harmless.

The biscuits are charmingly shaped and have a little variety too. A lovely touch,

And the jam is pretty lemony and pretty sticky. Nothing too amazing, but certainly decent,

I also had a matcha juice thing at Wagamama’s but it was basically apple juice with some tea sprinkled in. Boo.

 

Outrageously Chocolatey White Chocolate Coated Cookies & Cream (M&S) By @SpectreUK

I love white chocolate and I love biscuits. So, any idea combining the two seems like a great idea to me. These Outrageously Chocolatey White Chocolate Coated Cookies & Cream, does sound like a great idea too.

Apparently there is more than 50% of white chocolate in these Outrageously Chocolatey White Chocolate Coated Cookies & Cream. I didn’t know how much more than 50% of each cookie is white chocolate. Part of my childlike brain was thinking 99% white chocolate, 1% cookie, until Cinabar read the packet and pointed out there was 52% white chocolate.

On opening the packet these Outrageously Chocolatey White Chocolate Coated Cookies & Cream looked like white chocolate snow covered buildings. On first bite, “Holy, sh…” I was having a Hannah Waddington moment when she eats Ted Lasso’s biscuits.

These Outrageously Chocolatey White Chocolate Coated Cookies & Cream really are outrageously chocolatey. They taste like white chocolate cookie creamy heaven.

Once I bite through the thick layer of white chocolate, the cookie inside melted in my mouth and the whole thing ended up tasting like you’d expect a thick white chocolate building cookie cloud would taste like. Yummy. Pass me another.

Information on the packet; Each of the 6 cookies is 171 calories, with 9.5g of fat, 15.3G of sugar, and 0.11g of salt. Please see photograph for the ingredients.

Nescafe Creamy Tiramisu Latte (Ocado) By @Cinabar

Oh my, it happened. We’ve reached autumnal drinks season! I did my online grocery order, and there were FIVE new flavoured coffees, with this Nescafe Creamy Tiramisu Latte being one of them! Obviously, given the season, one of them was also a pumpkin spice, but all five got ordered. I know I have a coffee problem, but let’s be honest, there are worse things. The other reviews will follow, but let’s get started with the Tiramisu Latte.

I opened the sachet and it smelled rich and sweet, with a touch of alcohol in the aroma. Think Irish Coffee. It mixed up really well, with no lumps, and had a nice-looking froth on top.

I took a sip and the flavour was very much the Marsala wine that gives Tiramisu its kick, along with some creamy vanilla. This went very well with the coffee, and it was full of flavour while being lovely and creamy too. It was a proper delight on a wet afternoon. Soothing, sweet and great for fans of Irish Coffee flavours.

Belmont Biscuits Mini Waffle Cones with Milk Chocolate - Aldi UK [@NLi10]

The last bite of the Cornetto ice-cream is said to be the best.  It's the remainder of the cone, filled with soft chocolate and any sauce that may have run down the inside or outside.  It's the headline act to the festival of summer.

And now you can have a whole bag of them to yourself!

I've seen these in a few places - best implemented by the Norwegian waffle crisps we had in 2013 on our visit that I still think about.

These however are much more faithful to the ice-cream cone experience - and they sell it as nostalgia and reminiscence, purely because Cornetto are no longer the premium ice-cream they once were.

As usual the bag is half full to protect them during transport and they all look pretty in-tact so it's worked here.  The bag reseals too which is a premium feature and very much appreciated.

And they are fairly unassuming - very full of the chocolate and a little harder than their Wall's counterparts.  And frankly - not quite as good.  I think that I'd put this down to nostalgia but we had Cornettos in Wells recently as part of a Hot Fuzz visit, and while smaller it all still worked.

Here I think that to make it work as a snack they added too much choc, and it's not soft enough.  It also doesn't have the ice-cream chill to it that the real thing does.  Besides, they put it in to stop the juices soaking through the cone (which was choc coated all the way down) so it had a function unlike these which are pure indulgence.

In the end then this is like buying the medal for a marathon you didn't complete off eBay, the real prize was always the Cornetto and that last bite just the last step.  So - worth a try?  Absolutely, but don't be surprised if you get tempted to pop to the freezer and have a bowl of ice-cream with these on top as an indulgent treat.  I'd ahve probably done the same if it wasn't absolutely pouring with rain today!