Costa Salted Caramel Latte Sachets (Ocado) By @Cinabar

I am back on the coffee sachets and found these Costa Salted Caramel Latte Sachets under the new products listing online. I love a flavoured coffee, so they went straight into my basket.

I don’t normally see Costa sachets, so I was interested to try these, even though salted caramel isn’t exactly the most exciting flavour compared with some of the other autumnal drinks around. I always think salted caramel is a little bit of a lazy flavour, but it is popular for a reason: pretty much everyone likes it.

I opened the box and found a decent six sachets inside. That’s not quite as generous as Nescafé, which often gives you seven or eight, but it is much better than Starbucks, where you can get just four.

I mixed one up and it made a lovely frothy latte with no annoying lumps. The flavour was really good, with plenty of coffee, creamy milk and sweet caramel, followed by just a touch of salt for contrast.

The caramel was the bit that won me over. It had a lovely, soothing, almost toffee-like taste that made the drink feel really comforting. So yes, salted caramel might not be the most adventurous flavour, but it is undeniably nice. And sometimes that is exactly what you want from a coffee sachet.

Toblerone Crispy Salted Caramel (Tesco) By @cinabar

I’m just going to say it, Toblerone are a little late to the salted caramel party. The flavour peaked a few years ago! Still, it is always a good flavour, so I was keen to try this Toblerone Crispy Salted Caramel. When I bought it at the till, the lady serving me said it was her new favourite, so that sounded positive. It is also available in a bigger, giftable size, but I picked up the smaller bar as it was just for me.

I opened the bar and broke a piece off. It was surprisingly soft and broke really easily. Now, it is warm today, but at around 22°C, it shouldn’t have been quite that soft. I was expecting a bit more of a snap, so that was slightly weird.

The flavour was fab, though. This chocolate bar is packed with crispy caramel pieces and salt, giving it a proper sweet and savoury mix. The salt really makes the flavour pop. They may be late to the party, but they absolutely nailed it.

The melting point was weird, though, so I put what was left in the fridge.

Last week, having chocolate melt at room temperature made sense because the whole country was basically melting too! But today, it really should have been a little more solid. Still, the flavour more than makes up for the slightly strange melting point.

Biscoff Everything - KRAVE Caramelised Biscuit & White Choc [@NLi10]

 I think we've reached peak Biscoff.  From the little spicy biscuit you got given with a coffee to signify that it was posh, all the way to every conceivable food.

Here we have Kelloggs KRAVE version, with a Biscoff style outside, and a white chocolate inside.

Standard branding

Standard look

And it doesn't go soggy too quickly. 

The funny thing is though - this is probably the best Biscoff thing I've had in years.  The sweetness is slightly too much for me so I mixed with cornflakes (Kellogg's of course) but otherwise the whole thing is great.

Hopefully this isn't a limited deal (we got ours from B&M) because it's easily as good as the regular KRAVE (which we only don't buy as the Asda own brand version is much cheaper and just as good).

A wonderful blend of flavours and textures - and unlike the Kellogg's spicy naff flakes from Jan - actually a pleasure to eat.

Terry’s Chocolate Caramel (Tesco) By @Cinabar

It’s very hard to say the words Terry’s Chocolate without automatically adding Orange afterwards. Terry’s Chocolate Orange is such a classic, and it’s been around for ages. There have been a few different versions over the years, like ones with popping candy, but this is the first time I’ve seen Terry’s Chocolate Caramel.

It’s still orange-shaped, but the wrapper inside the box is cream rather than orange, which does make it stand out. It opens the same way too, a gentle tap on the table, then unwrap it and the slices neatly spread out (and yes, I still want to call it an Orange).

The first thing I noticed was the smell, a rich, slightly burnt caramel aroma. I tried a slice, and honestly, it didn’t grab me straight away. The flavour isn’t as sweet as I expected. After a second piece, though, I started to enjoy the more grown-up caramel flavour, and by the third I was completely hooked. It just took a moment to get used to it.

Bournville Salted Caramel (Morrisons) By @Cinabar

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Bournville Hazelnut and mentioned how much of a treat it is when we get a new Bournville product. I even said I wished there were more varieties using Cadbury’s dark chocolate. Well, my chocolate wish must have been granted, because here we are with another new bar. Don’t get me wrong, my wish for a million pounds would have been nice too, but I’ll have to settle for more chocolate.

This new edition pairs Bournville’s classic dark chocolate with a salted caramel filling. On unwrapping the bar, the neat squares each had a smart ‘B’ stamped on them, and when I broke one open I was pleased to see a decent amount of caramel inside.

Bournville is a sweeter dark chocolate, not particularly high in cocoa, but I like that about it. It has just the right balance for my sweet tooth. The chocolate shell was satisfyingly thick, giving a good crack before releasing the gooey caramel onto my palate.

The caramel itself was smooth and tasty, more sweet than salty. If you’re looking for a big salty hit, you might find it a little tame, but I thought it worked really well. The combination of the mellow dark chocolate and soft caramel made it far too easy to keep going back for another piece.

Overall, this was a lovely, moreish treat, and I really do hope it stays around. Yum.

McVities Gold Billions Wafer BUT Hazelnut [@NLi10]

 We looked at the McVities Gold bar the other week - and I realised the box contained two different flavours!  Here we have the same bar - but with non-brand hazelnut spread in it.

Looks exciting - lets try it! 

Splicey it in two parts to share

And this looks a lot more dark than the other bar.

I'd say that I couldn't really tell a remembered flavour from the other version, but I could see the wafers and hazelnut so I know that if I ate them side by side there would be something.

I think the caramel flavours are the strongest though so I think there are better nutty wafers, but this is an easy pick-up for fans of the original.

Nestle Kit Kat Salted Caramel (WHSmiths) By @SpectreUK

Nom nom nom. I have always loved Kit Kats for an afternoon break with a cup of tea or coffee. This new Nestle Kit Kat Salted Caramel bar has a marbled effect. On carefully unwrapping the bar for the photograph's sake, oh gosh, it smelt of caramel and milk chocolate goodness.

 

These Nestle Kit Kat Salted Caramel bars have a thick coating caramel flavoured milk chocolate, and are heavy on crème salted caramel inside, with a thin layer of oozy caramel and the usual crunchy wafers.

On taste there was the caramel milk chocolate coating to begin with, followed by the caramel crème, a thin layer of oozy caramel, with a saltiness as I crunched through the wafers. This Nestle Kit Kat Salted Caramel bar is to die for, pure luxury. Perfect for a self indulgent break anytime of the day.

Information on the wrapper; The 99g bar has apparent servings of 3 fingers (though I ate the whole bar) containing 172 calories, with 9.4g of fat, 16g of sugar, and 0.13g of salt.

Golden Blond Chocolate Spread (M&S) By @Cinabar

A few days ago I was talking about Caramac making a temporary comeback and how it had lost its market share as everyone was doing golden caramel chocolate-like products. Well, Marks and Spencer has brought out Golden Blond Chocolate Spread, so they are taking the golden caramel chocolate to the next level. I picked up a jar because one of my favourite treats is chocolate spread on toast. And I have a sweet tooth. 

Once home, I put the toaster on, ready to give this the taste test. I opened the jar, and the first thing I noticed was that there were bits in the spread. The texture was light and fluffy and easy to spread, but I couldn’t work out what the bits were. I checked the jar again, and it turns out they were waffle pieces. I have no idea why they are there. I have this on toast, so I don’t think it adds anything for me. The flavour though was sweet, rich caramel tastes, and was absolutely delicious. Maybe they do a smooth version without the bits too. I really enjoyed the taste; it was the perfect sweet treat for an afternoon snack or a naughty breakfast at the weekend. 

Nestle Caramac Buttons - They're Back! (Iceland) By @Cinabar

Last year there was a terrible loss in the world of confectionary, and I am here to tell you that we have a brief reprisal. They took away our Caramac, which was heartbreaking to us sweet toothed fans; they had been making it since 1959, so I guess we all thought it was permanent in every way possible. I grew up on Caramac and absolutely loved the stuff. There has been a huge increase in the number of companies producing a caramel-based ‘chocolate’, including Cadbury, and I guess that took away their market share. 

After a number of people mourned the loss, Nestle finally conceded and brought back Caramac, initially as an Iceland exclusive, but now it is back for a limited time only. I opened up the bag of Caramac Buttons (bars are also available), and it was so nice to see those caramel discs. The flavour was as I remember that lovely, rich, sweet caramel taste, with a texture similar to chocolate; it has a similar melting point at least. Wow, for me, these come with a wonderful serving of nostalgia as a post-school treat on a Friday. I have a sweet tooth; I love these Caramac Buttons and will pick up a multie pack of bars when I’m next in. Unfortunately, the return of the caramac is short-term. If you miss Caramac like me, it is time to stock up. Walk, don’t run. 

Itsu - salted caramel bao buns at home! [@NLi10]

 Itsu frozen Bao are great, but what if they were also a pudding?!

I spotted these and couldn't resist - gooey caramel and tasty bao

Easy to cook in the microwave - we used the bags the other bao came in and they all popped a bit!

Here is a raw one

Here are two with exploded bottoms!

Adding a bit of cinamon or nutmeg does wake these up a lot so well worth hunting the spice supplies.

And they aren't the most exciting (and I'd say you want a portion of two) but they are really tasty and a great addition to a meal.  Maybe even perfect for Halloween!

Not too 'burnt' caramel either - the flavour is pretty good - and I can imagine they may do other flavours if these are a hit.

Milkybar Gold Dessert (Morrisons) By @Cinabar

Today is the day for a midweek dessert. Okay, this is quite a simple one, but I found these Milkybar Gold Desserts and thought I’d give them a try. I have rather enjoyed all the new caramel chocolate flavours that we have had in bars and even in uttons. I find it so sad that Caramac stopped being manufactured at the same time all the other brands were doing so well with caramel chocolate, but I guess they had the market to themselves up until now. 

These new desserts really are quite small, but they are also only 91 calories per pot, so at least that sort of follows. I pulled off the lid and gave the dessert a try. It was nice, but it wasn’t as sweet as I thought it would be. It tasted like milky butterscotch, which was nice. It had about the consistency of a thick custard. This was nice, but it wasn’t overwhelming. I know I have a sweet tooth, so it should be no surprise that I wanted this to be a bit more rich than it was. So this Milkybar Gold Dessert was a pleasant, low-calorie dessert. I'm not sure I found it as exciting as I should have. 

McVitie’s Gold Billions Wafer (WH Smiths) By @SpectreUK

I fancy a treat tonight. My favourite comfort food is some sort of white chocolate bar with a white hot chocolate. This McVitie's Gold Billions Wafer is a "cream filled wafer bar with milk chocolate and white chocolate and caramel flavoured coating". Now that does sound like a proper treat.

White hot chocolate at the ready, as you can see from the photograph, McVitie's Gold Billions Wafer had a white caramel chocolate topping, with a milk chocolate bottom. The wafer on the inside had a creamy centre.

This was a luxuriously complex chocolate wafer bar. Crunchy to start with to get through the fairly thick chocolate coating, and the inner wafers, the creaminess made this a melt in the mouth sweet chocolate creamy caramel treat. It went perfectly with my white hot chocolate and the last of my Cadbury's White Chocolate Creme Eggs. Yum.

On opening the wrapper

Information on the wrapper; The 39g bar had 547 calories per 100g, with 32g of fat, 56.6g of sugar, and 0.38g of salt. Please see photograph for the ingredients.

Ben & Jerry’s Sundae: Dulce De-lish Ice Cream (Tesco) By @Cinabar

I may have bought more ice cream, despite the fact that the weather has turned colder again. We had a heavy frost this morning, and the central heating is on, but we are still having ice cream for dessert as I bought a new flavour. Here we have Dulce De-lish ice cream from the Ben & Jerry’s Sundae range. Inside the tub, we start with chocolate ice cream, and underneath this is a salt caramel ice cream base. Running through all of this are caramel swirls and chocolate chunks. 

When you have a tub of Ben & Jerry's, I’m assuming it is designed for sharing. My thoughts are that there are several portions in the pot. If you start scooping from the top, you kind of miss the magic of having the two flavours in the pot. I think layered ice cream in a tub should be sideways for the fix, but that is just my opinion. 

Anyway, we were sharing out several portions, so I had to steal a taste from the top, and my portion was mostly from the caramel sections. What they do wonderfully at Ben & Jerry’s is pack a lot of goodies in a tub, and this makes the whole thing wonderful to eat. But the chocolate and caramel sections of the ice cream were wonderfully flavorful and rich. The chocolate had loads of cocoa, and the caramel was wonderfully sugary and rich. The caramel swirls added a lovely touch of salt, and the chocolate chunks added extra sweetness and a touch of luxury. 

This Ben & Jerry’s Sundae: Dulce De-lish Ice Cream does what it says on the tub; it really is delicious. 

Cadbury Caramilk Crispy (Tesco) By @Cinabar

When I was a kid, I thought I was the only one who liked a bar called Caramac made by Nestle. Everyone thought I was weird; I had a very sweet tooth that seems to still be going strong. I still like Caramac, but in recent times, it seems that style of chocolate is having its moment in the spotlight. Cadbury brought out Caramilk, a caramel-flavoured chocolate, and suddenly everyone has that same sweet tooth. I’m obviously very pleased about it.

Caramel chocolate is doing so well. Cadbury has now brought out Cadbury Caramilk Crispy, which is their caramilk chocolate but with the addition of rice crispy bits. Not only do I have a sweet tooth, but I also love texture, so for me, this is just about the best thing ever. The flavour is sweet, mellow, and rich with toffee tones. The crispies aren’t noticeable from the front, but turn the bar over and you can see how many they packed in. The texture was nice and had a light crispiness that was a delight. It would be hard to complain about this bar, it ticks the boxes for me. The only issue is that it is just 85g in weight, so for the size, it is a thin bar, and frankly, I wanted more.

Kit Kat Caramel 4 Fingers (Tesco) By @Cinabar

There was something a little unconvincing about the word ‘new’ on this four-finger Kit Kat Caramel. Something just doesn’t feel that new or that different, if I’m honest. So I had a look back at previous Kit Kat reviews we’ve posted, and I found eight others that were similar. So this four-finger bar is new in the UK, but Kit Kat loves their caramel flavours, so it isn’t exactly that exciting.

I felt a little unenthusiastic, but I unwrapped the bar. There was a heady aroma of dark caramel and chocolate, which was rather nice, to be fair. I split a finger of Caramel Kit Kat from the bar and gave it a try. There is no argument that this was a nice bar. The caramel was rich and dark, and it had a slightly bitter burnt flavour that was lovely with the chocolate. It was a tasty bar, even if there was no gooey caramel inside it. I think they are just sticking with the idea that you can’t go wrong with caramel, and you can’t; this bar does taste good. I am just struggling to get excited about another caramel bar on the market, but I appreciate that this won’t be the last caramel Kit Kat variant to appear on the blog. For those wondering, here are just some of the others I could find:

Kit Kat Senses - Salted Caramel 

Kit Kat Chunky Salted Caramel Fudge 

Kit Kat Chunky Double Caramel 

Kit Kat Senses Caramel Cream  

Kit Kat Chunky Caramel (American Version) 

Kit Kat Toffee Treat 

KitKat Caramel 2 Fingers 

KitKat Caramel Chunky 

Dairy Milk Salted Caramel Fingers (Asda) By @Cinabar

To be completely honest, I have no idea how this took so long. Salted Caramel has been loving life, it has been the most popular new flavour for quite some time. In fact, trying to find brands that haven’t used it is a limited edition is harder than finding brands that have. I get it, what’s not to like about Salted Caramel but I really miss the days of crazy flavours. Cadbury in particular has released a lot of Salted Caramel goodies recently, so these new Dairy Milk Salted Caramel Fingers are no surprise at all.

I opened up the box and have to admit they did smell nice. There was a lovely chocolate aroma but also a rich toffee-like taste. I gave one a try and the flavour was good, there was plenty of creamy milk chocolate but then a rich sweet caramel and a touch of salt. They were nice. I liked them. That is the thing about Salted Caramel what’s not to like, I just like variety too.

Cadbury Caramilk Ice Creams (Iceland) By @Cinabar

Today is a Public Bank Holiday in the UK and it is sunny, this is an unusual combination. There is a running joke that you don’t need to look at the weather forecast in Britain when there is Bank Holiday because it always rains. So, taking advantage of this unusually warm day, I raided the freezer to see what we had, and I found this fab-looking box of Cadbury Caramilk Ice Creams.

Inside are four ice lollies, and I picked one out. Inside the wrapper is a lovely gold-coloured covered ice cream. I bit into it, and the chocolate wasn’t too thick and gave quite easily. It had all the lovely tones of rich toffee and caramel swirling in the flavour. Underneath was vanilla ice cream that added to the creaminess and was a delight. This was a total treat, and it is nice to see Caramilk and these caramel-flavoured chocolates becoming more popular. I’ve been hooked on them since I was a kid, as I have quite a sweet tooth, and I love that I can now buy ice creams with the flavour. It was the perfect treat on the last Bank Holiday of the month.

Munchies Chocolate Bar (Asda) By @Cinabar

Munchies chocolates have been going for a very long time, since the 1950s, in fact. Part of me thinks if you have a recipe and combination that works so well it is still popular over six decades later, you probably shouldn’t mess with it. It clearly works right. One of the popular things at the moment is sharing bars, so they have tried to turn the formula into a flat bar.

I opened it up, and the pieces are flatter but larger than Munchies. Couldn’t they have pushed a load of full-size Munchies into a block held together with melted chocolate? I think thats how I would have done it. Looking at them like this, it feels like the caramel to biscuit ratio can only be wrong. However, when I tried a piece, I was pleasantly surprised. The biscuit is in the form of bits set into the chocolate, and the caramel is actually fairly generously layered on top. The main ratio change is the extra chocolate, but that was fine. They had the feel of Munchies, and the caramel, the star of the show, shone through, so this bar worked surprisingly well. I wouldn’t want to lose the originals, but these are a decent addition to the range. 

Fox’s Crunch Creams Salted Caramel (Tesco) By @SpectreUK

We do love caramel flavour in this country. I can't say anything against that, as it's easily one of my favourite flavours too, especially in chocolate. I even like caramel flavour in my black coffee. I say even, simply because I don't drink that much coffee, but I just love the added sweetness. It only seems recent that we have become more adventurous with salted caramel. I never thought I'd like caramel with added salt, but just as long as the salt is not too strong or grainy, such as I had in one chocolate bar recently, I do like salted caramel.

This new limited edition Fox's Crunch Creams Salted Caramel biscuits is destined to get on my nerves a little. Well, anything that is named 'limited edition' usually does get on my wick. There aren't many new ventures to be had with snacking in the biscuit market, so to try something fairly racy, but make it a limited edition, seems a bit of a shame.

On opening the packet there was a strong smell of salted caramel from the Fox's Crunch Creams inside. The crunchy top layer of biscuit was sweet and pretty delicious to be honest. I ate the top biscuit, then scooped out the creamy inner layer with my teeth, and it was a gorgeous sweet salted caramel. Then I ate the bottom biscuit, which is my usual practice when I eat this type of biscuit.

This type of biscuit never fails to make me feel young. I ate all the biscuits with a tub of low calorie salted caramel ice cream for an extra treat. Gosh, what a lovely pudding. I'll definitely have to have these Fox's Crunch Creams Salted Caramel biscuits again.

Information on the packet; The 200g packet had 13 servings at 76 calories per biscuit, with 3.4g of fat, 5.9g of sugar, and 0.07g of salt. Please see photograph for the ingredients.

Caramelised Biscuit Flavour Hot Cross Buns (Aldi) By @Cinabar

There do seem to be a lot of interestingly flavoured Hot Cross Buns out this year, and I am on a quest to see if they are worth it. My gut instinct is that I am a bit of a traditionalist, but let's see if these Caramelised Biscuit Flavour Hot Cross Buns can sway me. 

I opened up the packet, and there was a rich caramel scent that hit me, and I have to say it was absolutely lovely. We had these lightly toasted, and again, the aromas while they were cooking were very promising. I added a bit of butter and gave it a taste test.

The flavour was rich, sweet, and tasty. I could pick up a heavy amount of caramel, spices, and that lovely promised biscuit taste. They definitely achieved their mission, and the spiced biscuit worked well in place of the spices you would expect to find in a regular Hot Cross Bun. There was a little voice in my head asking me why there weren’t any raisins in the mix. Apparently, I favour the traditional buns, but these Caramelised Biscuit Flavour Hot Cross Buns are still a delight.