14 December 2013

Pirates Versus Gingerbread Men (New @McVities #Biscuits) [By @SpectreUK]




Memories of my childhood consist partly of late Saturday afternoon's after shopping spent at my Auntie and Uncle Fred's house. My Uncle Fred taught me the basics of woodwork and bought me toy cars, whilst my Auntie started my love of Walker's Ready Salted crisps, this was before I tried them washed down with beer, and fed me Animal Biscuits whilst I watched the football scores. Not that I knew what was going on or ever supported any teams, but I have always strangely found the announcer's voice soothing and sometimes still watch the football scores today! This is why Cadbury's Animal Biscuits are the favourite biscuits from my childhood. Cinabar occasionally buys me a box now and then when I've been good, so it's quite a rare occurrence! When she bought me two boxes of McVitie's mini chocolate biscuits I knew something was up. "'Pirates versus Gingerbread Men', sounds like a great title," she said, ever the taskmaster!



McVitie's Mini Pirate Crew

McVitie's have brought out these new Mini Pirate Crew biscuits, which are a different take on Cadbury's children's chocolate biscuits. As you can see from the photograph there was four crew members joined together for "crack' n' snap" fun. There was a fun Snakes and Ladders type game on the back of the box. There were six packets in the 155g box, with two crews in each handy lunchbox sized packet. The biscuits were covered on one side with lovely milk chocolate, and the biscuits were slightly crunchier digestive style biscuits than Cadbury's Animal Biscuits. These biscuits made for a fun and tasty alternative lunchbox sized chocolate biscuit treat that I'm sure would appeal to children and parents alike. If you don't like pirates there's always McVitie's Mini Jungle Friends crack 'n' snap biscuits to try, though these may be a little overly reminiscent of the Animal Biscuits variety.

Information on the box;
Each pirate crack 'n' snap crew biscuit contains 65 calories, with 4.5g of sugar and 2.8g of fat. No artificial colours or flavours, and no hydrogenated vegetable oil. Ingredients included; wheat flour, sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, dried skimmed milk, butter oil, lactose, soya lecithin, vegetable oil, milk solids, salt, sodium bicarbonate and ammonium bicarbonate.



McVitie's Mini Gingerbread Men

Now I like Gingerbread Men just like most other people, especially in the cold winter months as ginger has its spicy warming effect. Give me a large Gingerbread Man and I can happily torture him for a while, biting his limbs off one after the other before the finishing bite to his neck! Sounds gruesome I know, but if you say you haven't done it you're probably lying. Just like anyone who say's they haven't bitten the top off a Fizzy Cola Bottle and pretended to drink it!

Covering half of each Gingerbread Man with milk chocolate sounds a bit out there to me. Besides how can I torture a Mini Gingerbread Man anyway? These biscuits are Animal Biscuit sized and the days of biting daintily into most sized biscuits have long since passed me by. I usually dump a good wad of Animal Biscuits in my mouth at a time. The only reason I crack 'n' snapped the Pirates was so I could play the Snakes and Ladders type game on the back of the box! Anyway, I digress... There was a mild smell of ginger on opening the silvery packet inside the box. These smiley Mini Gingerbread Men had a mild spice from the ginger and a milky sweetness from their half covering of milk chocolate. The 25g serving suggestion quickly went out the window and I devoured most of these ludicrously moreish Gingerbread Men in one sitting and in not so dainty handfuls.

Information on the box;
100g box. Each recommended 25g serving contains 120 calories, with 9.6g of sugar and 5g of fat. Ingredients included; wheat flour, sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, dried skimmed milk, dried whey, butter oil, soya lecithin, partially inverted sugar syrup, molasses,vegetable oil, ground ginger, salt, sodium bicarbonate and disodium diphosphate.

Both boxes of biscuits were very tasty indeed. The Mini Pirate Crew can give Cadbury's Animal Biscuits a warning cannon shot across their bow, with a "Shiver me timbers!" They also had the fun Snakes and Ladders game on the back of the box, which I'm sure I saw one similar on the Animal Biscuits' box when I was a child. If I was to pick between the two though, Animal Biscuits would win as I prefer the softer less crunchy biscuit. If I was to pick an alternative to Animal Biscuits with a spicy edge, the Mini Gingerbread Men would be my first port of call. Just like Animal Biscuits I just couldn't put the packet down. So much so that I didn't mind the crunchier biscuit or the fact that I couldn't torture the Gingerbread Men, I had to finish them off quickly and on mass instead!
By Spectre

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