Festive Leftovers (Various Sources) [by @NLi10]

It's that time of year again, the time of year that comes after the other two times of year we've just had. This one is the one where you have lots of odds and ends of food left around. Often these are presents or things you took to parties that didn't get finished or just things you sampled while with friends. I took pictures of some of the more unusual ones that I tried and have collated them below.



Chip 'n' Ketchup Pringles

These were brought into work to share and with good reason - they taste a bit wrong. I'm not sure whether it's the brain misinterpreting the artificial flavours or just that Heinz ketchup taste is so pervasive but these were an odd mix. Essentially they are trying to taste like a fried chip with vinegar and ketchup and end up tasting like sweet, sulphurous crisps. Not sure why these haven't caught on!

Bahlsen Zum Fest

Now this is more like it! I'm not sure whether these were bought for Christmas Day or were a present but they appeared at Ms. NLi10's parent’s house on Christmas morning. Being a polite soul I only had a couple but all were of the usual high Bahlsen quality and actually tasted like Germanic festive treats you might purchase at a Christmas market.


Presentation wise they were also well done so these are easily giftable. I may check for these in Aldi/Lidl as that's the kind of place that excels in Euro snacks. A definite hit.


Lir - Fabulous Chocolate Florentines

We came (joint) second place in the Trust quiz and our prize was chosen to be these. We universally expected them to have a crisp base but essentially these are HUGE (5cm diameter) chocolate buttons with adult style toppings.


These included coffee, raspberry meringue, nuts and a dark fruits of forest one. As they are just choc you can see the very bottom light brown one has melted in the box! The choc was of a high quality but it was the smells that they produced and the toppings that raised these above the masses. A deluxe prize if there ever was one.


Border Biscuits Collection

These were a gift to our office by one of our beloved consultants. The tin and its contents are very well presented but a lot of the biscuits were broken due to their crumbly nature. This didn't impact on the taste and the only reason some of these survive is that there was so much else to try. I think the fruit in these was a little hard at times, but this wasn't a problem. Rare to see fruit in a chocolate biscuit work as a flavour balance too, which was a nice surprise.

And that’s it! Hope you enjoy clearing up all the last biscuits in the barrel as much as I did - Happy New Year!!

By NLi10

Turkey Crisps (Tesco Finest Vs Tyrrells) (By @Cinabar)

As you are probably sitting down to the inevitable turkey sandwiches, what snack is more fitting to accompany them than turkey flavoured crisps. Disappointingly this year Walkers chose not release its annual turkey variety, but both Tyrrells and Tesco have put forward some crisps in the traditional Christmas flavour.


Turkey and Chestnut Stuffing [Tyrrells]
These crisps are fairly thickly cut and had a lovely herb smell when I poured them into a bowl. The flavour was a little milder than expected, but did have a good meaty taste, a hint of sage and a nutty aftertaste. I’ve not seen crisps seasoned with chestnut before, and it was nice that the taste of chestnut was distinguishable on the crisps, the nut flavour did make these feel quite substantial. The bag was thoroughly enjoyable, flavoursome but not strong enough to overpower any items that they might be served with.


Roast Norfolk Turkey and Stuffing with Onion Gravy [Tesco Finest]
This bag of crisps has a much stronger aroma, but still looked to be thickly cut with a good crunch. The flavour of these was very different to the other variety as these were so much stronger. There was a lovely meaty flavour that reminded me of roast chicken crisps. The other major ingredient was the seasoning with onion and sage, and there was plenty of it too representing the onion gravy and stuffing. I loved this taste, and felt all the herbs and onion they had packed in really made them. The crisps were a perfect meaty crisp, it was as if they’d been dipped in the gravy pot!

Out of the two varieties I preferred the Tesco ones as they were stronger and had a fuller flavour. I also felt that the heavy addition of the sage and onion really made them super tasty and moreish. Having said that the Tyrrells are still a great crisp, they just have a more delicate base flavour, but the addition of the chestnut made them something special too.

By Cinabar

Fabulous Bakin' Boys Christmas Cupcakes - Orange & Mint [By @NLi10]

And a very Merry Christmas to you all - I hope you Found Foodstuff under your trees and in your stockings!

I decided to grab the festive selection from the Fabulous Bakin Boys as these seem to be a little more varied than the previous offerings - each box contains three different chocolate toppings (Dark, Milk, White) on the base cake flavour. While this isn't the biggest of deals seeing that the toppings are more of a fondant than a chocolate this is still an improvement on the less varied offerings for the previous seasons.

First up was the mint, which I'd never had before and worried that would be overpowering in an After Eight kind of way. This proved to not be a problem and these were lovely and mild and suitable for eating after a big festive meal (should one occur). I think that the different chocolates didn't vary the experience as much as I'd expected, but the darker ones are always my favourite.

The orange ones were similar to ones I'd munched previously and as such were mostly given away. I did try a white orange one to confirm that they were as expected and they were. I like the orange ones but on this occasion I think that the minty ones are probably the ones to go for as an alternative to the plague of mince pies that blight the British Christmas (the filling contains pretty much all the dried fruits that I dislike so much!).

By NLi10

Marks & Spencer's - Frosty Balls (by HiImRy)

As a festive bonus here is a mini Christmas review from our youngest writer Ryan:

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Now to try to write a review without this sounding weird! Me and my friends were making YouTube videos and during a movie break we decided to eat the frosty balls I brought over, and they are surprisingly nice.

On the back says quote "milk chocolate balls ( TeeHee ) in a crisp candy shell rolled in icing sugar" sounds good but eating it is a lot better! Delicious, only £1, and brilliant for a Christmas party.

Have a Merry Christmas!!

by HiImRy

Bah Humbug and McMullen Stronghart [Festive Beers] (Morrisons) [By @SpectreUK]

It’s Christmas Eve and what better than two festive beers to warm the insides on a cold winter’s night? Well, I can name one or two things, but this is a family blog, so I’ll say Christmas presents and loved ones! Cinabar is part German, so goes crazy for anything Christmassy, like bringing a tree into the house and hanging shiny dangly things all over it (but I guess that caught on mostly all over the world some time ago) and especially opening her presents on Christmas Eve. I was always a Christmas Day morning present opener when I was a child. I always tried to stay awake the night before as long as possible to catch a glimpse of Santa, but fell asleep before I saw him. I’d wake up and Santa would have left my presents at the end of my bed in a huge bag (well it was huge to me as I was quite small at the time). Since I met Cinabar, over thirteen years ago (poor thing), I switched to opening my presents on Christmas Eve.


Bah Humbug! (Morrisons)

Bah Humbug beer was brewed by the Wychwood brewery, in Oxfordshire. It is a Christmas beer with a drawing of grumpy old Scrooge and the ghost of Jacob Marley behind him on the label. I felt it fitting to drink this beer whilst Kelsey Grammer’s “A Christmas Carol” TV movie was on the box, at the same time as I was wrapping Christmas presents and writing Christmas cards. After twenty minutes of the film I complained that everyone kept incessantly singing, and then Cinabar reminded me that it was the musical adaption of “A Christmas Carol”. I commented that no wonder Scrooge was grumpy with all those overly cheerful people singing all the time…

The label stated that Bah Humbug had been spiced with cinnamon and had “subtle tones of dried fruit”. On opening, the beer smelt strong and fruity with a touch of cinnamon spice. I poured the 5% volume beer into my beer mug noticing that it was a dark brown bitter. In contradiction to the label I initially found that the taste had overtones, rather than “subtle tones” of fruitiness complementing the heavy bitter taste, there was also a hint of spice from the cinnamon in with the overall flavour, but this in itself was the “subtle” side to the beer. Bah Humbug undeniably had a wintery Christmas feel to it, with the mixture of fruitiness and subtle cinnamon spice merging with the strong bitter, lending to a well rounded fruity spicy bitter aftertaste. I enjoyed drinking this beer and felt that it helped to keep out the winter chill for a while. I savoured Bah Humbug on its own, but I reckon it would go very well with Christmas Pudding, Christmas cake or even mince pies.

McMullen Stronghart (Morrisons)

McMullen Stronghart is produced by McMullen & Sons, which has been an independent family brewer since 1827. Stronghart bitter was brewed with malted East Anglian Barley and whole leaf English hops. It was described by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) as; “Liquid Christmas Pudding” and was granted their first “Best Festive Ale” award. Stronghart was described as; “rich, dark and exceptionally smooth” on the label. With that description in mind and over a hundred and fifteen years of brewing experience, I just couldn’t wait to open this beer and give it a try.

I poured the bottle of Stronghart into my freshly washed beer mug (for the full flavour experience), noting that it was almost black in colour. There was an underlying sweetness and a hint of liquorish in the strong beery smell, but I was slightly confused by the “Liquid Christmas Pudding” quote, as I couldn’t find even a hint of fruitiness. This beer was definitely full bodied and I could feel the 7% volume strength of it just by standing next to the mug. I was taken aback by just how smooth this beer tasted, particularly considering its alcoholic potency. Stronger beers can often overly bite at the back of the mouth and frequently taste like they’ve been mixed with port or red wine. There was a taste of liquorish complemented by what seemed to be black treacle, which added the sweetness to the beer. There was definitely no fruitiness to this beer in any way, but none had been promised by the brewer. The liquorish was not overpowering and the beer had a sweetened, black treacle edge that in no way tasted syrupy. Both these flavours worked perfectly together with the hops and malted barley to create a luxurious richness to this almost black beer. This is a beer to be savoured on its own, with no added foods to complement or confuse the flavour. Out of all the many beers I’ve sampled and sozzled over this year, and believe me there’s been quite a few, I honestly hand on Stronghart proclaim this beer as one of the finest.

Merry Christmas everyone... or Bah Humbug, depending on how you feel! ;-)

By Spectre

Taste The Difference – Christmas Cake Baking Kit (Sainsbury’s) [By @Cinabar]

I used to bake a fair amount of cakes, but in recent years have done less and less. I can’t remember the last time I actually made a fruit cake, but with the help of this new kit, thought I’d give it a go this year. I enlisted my mum in to help, just in case. I know it may seem a little late to be making a Christmas cake, but there is still nearly a week before the big day.
Inside the kit are all the dry ingredients you need, including spices, brown sugar, flour, dried fruit soaked in Armagnac and Marcona almonds. The only fresh ingredients required were butter, a lemon and 3 eggs which were easily picked up. We eagerly pre-heated the oven and greased and lined an 8” cake tin in preparation.
One of the things I loved about the pack is that everything is pre-weighed for you which is certainly a bonus. As the packet of butter had measurements on the pack, it meant that I didn’t have to use the kitchen scales at all for the cake, which must be a baking first for me. My mum is the kind of cook who somehow just knows how much of an ingredient to add, but I meticulously measure everything. We followed the simple instructions and I creamed the butter and sugar together, mixed in the eggs, and then folded in all the other ingredients. I was quite shocked by just how much fruit there was, and rather impressed by its wonderful aroma as the kitchen started to smell Christmassy. It took quite a bit of folding to get an even mix on the ingredients, but I knew the work would be worth it. When we were sure it was all mixed, we spooned it into the tin, pressing it down gently to make sure the tin was full in every corner and topped it with some more grease proof paper (as per the instructions). We placed it in the oven, and filled the 3h30mins baking time wrapping Christmas prezzies and writing cards.
Once it was done, we eased it out of the tin, and peeled away the greaseproof paper. I can’t tell you how proud we were of the results, once the waiting was finally overly. The cake looked amazing and beautiful, and I desperately wanted to cut into there and then and serve it with a mug of seasonal tea. I will have to wait though – and make some effort at icing the beauty! The Christmas Cake Baking Kit from Sainsbury’s works like a dream, and I have to say we thoroughly enjoyed making it too. I never expected the cake to look so tempting, the results could not have been better!

By Cinabar

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UPDATED - THE FINISHED ARTICLE:

Doughnut Selection (Christmas German Market, Birmingham) [By @Cinabar]

As you have probably already seen, Spectre made a visit to the Birmingham German Market after work, and brought back a selection of doughnuts for us to try. He said that there were quite a few flavours to choose from, and managed to pick the following five varieties:

Custard (Back left in photo)
This custard filled doughnut is also chocolate topped, and although you can only just tell from the photograph, it has also been sprinkled with hundreds and thousands along one side. Although it was labelled as custard the filling is more like a vanilla cream as it was almost white in nature and it was very creamy in flavour. The custard and chocolate worked well together and the easy going tones allowed the cooked doughy taste to shine through.

Dark Chocolate (Front left in photo)
There were some nuts decorating this one, but the filling was pure rich dark chocolate in its taste. It was an indulgent flavour, and the milk chocolate icing really added to the experience. Although the nuts looked nice on top there wasn’t quite enough of them to influence the flavour, but it didn’t really matter as the doughnut worked well anyway.

Strawberry (Centre in photo)
As you would probably have guessed this is the pink doughnut in the picture! It is topped with pretty strawberry icing, and a foam strawberry sweet to really set the scene. The jam in the centre is more traditional and has a good strong strawberry flavour that is super fruity. The perfect doughnut for strawberry fans.

Black Forest Gateaux (Top right in photos)
I thought this was the prettiest of the doughnuts in the selection box, with its white icing, chocolate sprinkles and a cherry decorating the top. The centre was impressive too, it had been slightly oddly caught with the filling as it had two huge dollops of cherry jam in side. I think it was just made luckily and caught two injections of jam, but I fear somebody out there had the doughnut made next to it with no filling whatsoever. Sorry whoever you were, but your loss was my gain! As I’ve mentioned before on the blog I do like the black forest flavour, and this certainly went some way to recreating it, and I loved the taste. The only issue was the top needed a heavier sprinkle of chocolate to properly get that cocoa taste shining through.

Nutella (Bottom right in photo)
This particular doughnut has a simple concept, fill a doughnut with Nutella and then top it with chocolate. It may be simple, but it is genius! The filling is sweet and rich with chocolate and hazelnut flavours, and the sponge just makes the whole thing work. The dollop of Nutella was very generous and worked with the chocolate topping. Again an indulgent doughnut and perfect for the chocolate nuts fans like me.

By Cinabar

Tiddly Penguin (Hotel Chocolat) [By @SpectreUK]

This smart 85g box from Hotel Chocolat contains eight solid caramel flavoured milk chocolate penguins. One serving portion is thought of as four penguins, which is 238 calories or 476 calories for all eight penguins if you’re feeling greedy! The penguin shapes are rather cute, wearing scarves just in case you are crazy enough to put these chocolates in the fridge or leave them outside in the cold winter for too long. Ingredients included; caramelized sugar, caramel, and vanilla. I could definitely taste the vanilla which complemented the caramel in the milk chocolate, adding an extra luxurious sweetness to the taste. Biting into each chocolate penguin I had the slight disappointment that the penguins didn’t have a gooey caramel centre, but the sheer creaminess of the milk chocolate combined with the pleasure of caramel mixed with vanilla made me instantly forget the need for gooeyness. I really enjoyed eating these chocolate penguins, and savoured everyone I was fortunate enough to get my hands on before Cinabar and her mom wrestled the box off me. The cute chocolate penguin shapes made me smile and would make a lovely treat for kids and adults alike. I can’t image these caramel chocolate penguins would last very long if you show them off to anyone, especially if you go with the suggested “after dinner treat” on the box. Take my advice, be selfish and keep them all to yourself… ;-)

By Spectre

Black Forest Hot Chocolate (Costa) [By @cinabar]

This new hot chocolate forms part of the Christmas drinks range at Costa. Christmas shopping can take it out of you and for the sake of refreshment we decided to stop at Costa and sample their seasonal goodies.
I love Black Forest Gateaux, although it is something I have always felt was a bit retro, given its popularity in the eighties. I have never grown out of the stuff, and am pleased to see it’s having a bit of a revival at the minute. I’ve seen it on the menu at Fortnum & Masons and several other posh cafes, and I have been enjoying its come back.
Although the gateaux itself wasn't available in Costa their new hot chocolate is named after it and contains luscious amounts of cherry sauce and chocolate. The drink in the picture is the version without cream, but if you want to go the full hog and recreate the cake properly they will gladly laden your mug with cream to finish too.
I actually like fruity flavoured hot chocolates, but they aren’t that common as I think they need a special kind of sweet tooth (rather like mine). I felt the flavour of this drink was perfect and full on, and was everything I hoped for. The hot milky chocolate was soothing and rich, but the cherry syrup just added a nice bit of tartness and a fruity burst to break it all up. The cherry and chocolate flavours worked rather well together, and produced a fabulous hot chocolate that was indeed reminiscent of black forest gateaux. Personally I loved the stuff, and felt it was the perfect afternoon pick-me-up for the tired shopper. Now if they served it along with a slice of the cake it’s named after, now that would be heaven!

By Cinabar

Honey Monster Snowy Puffs [By @NLi10]

I'm spotting a trend here - new season, new Puffs! This time around the HM has donned his snowboarding gear and is celebrating winter the only way he knows - by adding to the base cereal with a snow themed addition. This time the base sugar-puffs taste similar to the normal variety but you get little bits of crunchy meringue to go with it. This is a strange choice - children are not notorious for their love of meringue, in fact if you give them some at a family party with fruit in they tend to pull funny faces (it's so worth it). Also this cereal doesn't have anything that isn't sweet to offset it. With some trepidation I decided to eat away.



The box is decorated in a playful way and contains lots of lovely distractions that are suitable for children but not squarely aimed at them as apparently you aren't supposed to do that anymore (despite a good breakfast being one of the basic Public Health things you are supposed to encourage). I'm pretty sure the missing word is 'A' (because there is no such thing as a Snow Tractor - unless they meant Plough...).


The cereal has a few unusual qualities. The first mouthful is fine - hard Sugar Puffs, hard meringue and milk all in harmony - but after a while it all goes a bit odd. When the sugar puffs are soft due to the milk (which is fine - they don't go mushy they are just less hard) the meringue stays hard, this means that it's like finding a rock in your cereal. After the first few surprise crunches you anticipate it, but then you start to get a strange shift in the flavours as the meringues take over. This is easily fixed by making sure you only get one or two in a spoonful but if you hit three or four then it's like taking a bite out of some meringue without anything to balance it out and it's a bit sweet and papery and not at all pleasant. If this was a cereal with dried fruit in then they could go together quite well, even past the softening, but in Sugar Puffs it doesn't quite work and I much preferred the Toffee Apple variety.

I think that a solution to this would be to put in less meringue - for me anyway - if you are a massive fan of eating this kind of thing with no topping then this may be the breakfast rush you've been hunting for. I think the more traditional route would be to have little hard marshmallows like in Lucky Charms (which we don't get much of over here) but then your cereal isn't vegetarian which is a Bad Thing in the UK where we are pretty good at special diets.

Overall it's a fun little product and a great surprise for visiting children to try, but not one I'll be rushing for more packs of. I might try another one next year though. And I can't wait for the Honey Monster Spring Collection (with seeds maybe? or fruit? I'm no good at this!).

By Nli10

Garlic Bread and Garlic Mushrooms at the German Market in Birmingham [By @SpectreUK]

The German Market has been a popular phenomenon every Christmas in Birmingham city centre for some years now. It has grown in size and popularity over the years to become the biggest German Market outside of Germany this year, and its stalls run from the Bullring Bronze Bull statue to Centenary Square. I usually make a point of visiting the market at least once whilst it runs from late November until 23rd December. After a lengthy wonder around the many market stalls that offer a wide range of items from jewelry to tin toys, clothing to sweets, cakes and chocolates, massive German sausages to roasted chestnuts, I made a beeline for my favourite garlic bread stall…


Garlic Bread

The garlic bread stall (shown in the photograph) is in the form of a huge clove of garlic. It is in the same place every year, which is just in front of the Town Hall on Victoria Square. The stall offers three flavours of garlic bread; Garlic and Cheese; Garlic, Cheese and Salami; and Garlic, Cheese and Spicy Sausage. I’ve tried the Garlic and Cheese, and the Garlic, Cheese and Salami flavours in the years before, and I remember that both flavours were sumptuously juicy with garlic, thick tasty cheese and the second flavour was laced with meaty spicy salami. This year I decided to try the Garlic, Cheese and Spicy Sausage. Sadly I didn’t get a picture, due to the fact that the bread is served on a napkin (not a paperplate) and is rather messy, therefore I had to eat the garlic bread whilst it was nice and hot before the garlic and cheese oozed everywhere. Again, the bread was juicy with garlic, covered with thick melted and slightly stringy cheese and lovely spicy meaty pieces of sausage. The spice in the sausage was quite hot, and mixed well with the strong garlic and cheese flavours. Part the way through eating the Garlic, Cheese and Spicy Sausage flavour I began to seriously regret not trying this flavour before from this stall. I mean, I like the Garlic and Cheese, and the Garlic, Cheese and Salami flavours, but the Garlic, Cheese and Spicy Sausage flavour was in a class of its own. However, I could tell that I wasn’t going to get much kisses when I got home from work that night, or many the next day for that matter, so I made my way to the fried mushrooms and fried potatoes with garlic sauce stall. In for a penny… I guess!




Fried Mushrooms and Fried Potatoes with Garlic Sauce

Set amongst all the German sausage, mulled wine and beer stalls in Victoria Square and not too far from the garlic bread stall, is the stall that cooks fried mushrooms and fried potatoes with garlic sauce. The stall also cooks fried burgers too, but I’m still to try one of these at some point. There are huge frying pans on this stall, one with fried mushrooms, one with fried potatoes and one with fried burgers. I ordered fried mushrooms and fried potatoes with the customary garlic sauce. As I was handed a plate piled high with mushrooms, fried slices of potatoes, and runny with garlic sauce, I reminded myself that last year I ended up wearing the garlic sauce, which was a pain to get out of a suit jacket. There are plenty of tables to stand around nearby, which were busy with people eating and drinking. I shared a table with a couple that were visiting from Yorkshire, and had a nice conversation with them. Everybody seemed happy and friendly around me, and in the Christmas spirit. The hot fried potatoes soaked up much of the garlic sauce, and the fried mushrooms were dipped in the rest. The meal was just as tasty and luxurious as I remembered it from the previous years, and I’d recommend it to anyone.

I’d been looking forward to my trip to the German Market particularly for these two food stalls since the previous year, and was certainly not disappointed. The German Market always leaves me full of food and in the Christmas spirit. I shall try and visit again before the 23rd December, to see if I can sample some more German food and drink. I bought six doughnuts as I was leaving the market, which Cinabar will write up soon and a teddy bear for one of Cinabar’s Christmas presents. Merry Christmas everyone! ;-)

By Spectre

Vimto Hot Mulled Berry Punch [Spiced Cordial] [By @cinabar]

The fruity mix of flavours of Vimto always takes me back to my childhood, where I drank litres of the stuff! In recent years they have brought out new flavours, and have fizzy versions too, but it is the cordial which I have a soft spot for. I was intrigued to see that this year they have a seasonal edition drink to warm us up in the winter months. The drink is mulled with Christmas spices, and is designed to be had hot and made with water from the kettle. After a long day at work, and a walk home in the cold I popped the kettle on to try it out.
Once the lid was off, I checked the aroma of the concentrated fruity mix and I could clearly pick up on the smell of regular Vimto and a nice hint of something a little spicy like cloves. I poured a large splash of the drink into mugs and topped up with hot water. The drink had a lovely rich dark red/purple colour and smelt wonderfully fruity. The regular taste of Vimto shone though, with its mixed fruit goodness. There is aftertaste with this drink that is very mildly spiced, with a just a hint of something slightly warming and woody and the end of each sip. The drink is nice because it is Vimto, but I felt that they could have turned up the seasonal flavour by adding a bit more cinnamon and spice, as the mulled part is so very mild. I say this as a cinnamon addict who was hoping for a bit more tang from the taste as it is one of my favourite flavours. I suspect Vimto kept it mild so that it would stay child friendly and not overpower the original Vimto experience. As such I think it will go down well at Christmas parties for little ones or those who don't want an alcoholic drink. It’s a nice drink – true to the original flavour, which just a subtle hint of something extra mixed in and a gentle Christmas twist.

By Cinabar

Mince Pie Ice Cream (Tesco Finest) [By @Cinabar]

From the people that brought you mince pie crisps… we now have mince pie ice cream! This isn't ice cream made specially to serve with mince pies, oh no this is mince pie flavoured! It is an unusual idea this year to have new and interesting mince pie flavoured goodies, but one I'm lapping up.
I hastily opened the tub, and inside was a light cream coloured ice cream filled with all sorts of interesting bits and goodies. I could see bits of pastry mixed into the tub, and other intriguing items like specs of cinnamon and other spices.
I scooped some into a bowl, and gave it a first try. The base flavour of the ice cream is not really as expected at all. Mince pies have a rich current taste, but the main element here was citrus, with a slightly tart lemon edge. There were plenty of warming spices mixed in, and the cloves and cinnamon did go some way to warming it up, but it couldn't cover the lemon taste. I know mince pies contain lemon, and they have a hint of sour, but the strong currant flavour was missing from this ice cream. I liked the texture from the pastry bits mixed in, and the creamy taste had nice hints of butter and biscuit which certainly fulfilled the pastry aspect of the mince pies.
The ice cream was absolutely lovely, and the citrus base taste worked well with the spices and Christmas flavour. The pastry aspect added a lovely texture and buttery bursts, and I thoroughly enjoyed the tub. I have bought a second tub to put away for Christmas as I liked it so much. Ultimately though if you judge this as 'mince pie' flavour it was just slightly lacking the rich dark currant and raisin flavour you'd expect. It’s actually more of a refreshing ice cream, and would be well suited to the summer months!

By Cinabar

Alternative Mince Pies (Hotel Chocolat) [By @Cinabar]

I have to say this product has an odd name. These chocolates are called Alternative Mince Pies yet contain no mincemeat, or even pastry for that matter. They do look a little like mince pies but they are notably smaller than you'd expect too. In conclusion there isn’t much similarity, so it seems to be that the name is more literal in that they are an alternative treat to have with coffee than a twist on the original idea. When I first saw them I had hoped for a special chocolate and mincemeat concoction, which I think could work if blended well, particularly if Hotel Chocolat were involved. Perhaps next year – if we cross our fingers?
Let’s focus on what we do have here, which are six chocolates neatly presented in a sweet box . There are two varieties of chocolate (milk/dark), both with a nice thick amount of caramel and a good hit of praline. The milk chocolate is sweet and had a lovely strong chocolate flavour. The dark chocolate added that extra bit of richness, and was a perfect accompaniment to the filling.
The soft caramel was thick, but still pleasingly wet and runny, and the textures were lovely with the chocolate shell. I loved breaking through the chocolate to reveal the gooey centre. The caramel was sweet, with hints of brown sugar and had a subtle salty edge to complete the taste. The praline was lovely and nutty and worked perfectly with the chocolate base taste. The chocolates were delicious, and offered a lovely chocolaty treat.
I felt that the flavours worked well, and both the milk and dark chocolate shone through with exceptional flavour. These would be perfect served with coffee after dinner during the Christmas season, but I’d still keep a box of real mince pies in the cupboard, to have with custard! ;-)

By Cinabar

Tesco Finest - Mince Pie Flavour Crisps (Tesco @UKTesco) [By @Cinabar]

I first saw these mentioned in the papers/twitter, and knew I had to track them down! Despite trying my local branch, and several smaller Tescos located near me I had no joy. I managed to talk Spectre into the long drive to the next town where there is a branch of Tesco Extra and lo and behold there they were! This was the last bag on the shelf mind, and I hurriedly claimed it! That trip to Tesco resulted in quite a few other goodies going into the trolley too! For example, you’ll be pleased to hear I also managed to find some interesting flavoured beer to torture Spectre with at a later date! ;-)
In retrospect I made a mistake when I opened the bag, because we had them as an accompaniment to sandwiches, and from the first one I tasted I realised that this wasn’t what they were meant for. The crisps aren’t really savoury, and as such would be best on their own in a big bowl with a Christmas movie on in the background. The bag smells distinctly aromatic and immediately fills your nostrils with a seasonal scent. They are a nice thick potato cut, and surprisingly sweet and flavoursome. The first crisp took me a minute to acclimatize my taste buds which are more used to savoury, but after that these were winning it all the way. I could pick up on raisin, Christmas spices such as cloves and cinnamon, and quite a strong apple taste mixed in too. The apple was a little unexpected, but did add the necessary sweetness to the overall flavour. The aftertaste was buttery, which I think was to help give the pastry effect which was a nice touch. We left the crisps until after we finished our sandwiches and had them as a sort of dessert crisp, and they worked much better that way too.
These crisps are totally different to anything else on the market, but they do exactly what they say on the bag and recreate that mince pie flavour in the form of crisps. It is different, and the first one you taste may seem a little odd, but once you get used to the concept they really grown on you. It’s just such a clever idea, and Tesco must be praised for the excellent flavour and creativity. We made a special trip to the next town for these, and I can honestly say it was worth it. I really hoped they get stocked in a few more branches and not just the Extra stores, because I want a second bag!
Have you tried them? What did you think?

By Cinabar

Christmas Jaffa Cakes (Marks & Spencer) [By @Cinabar]

M&S has a fab array of Christmas goodies appearing on the shelves, and I wandered around the bright red Christmas isle with an air of wonder on my face, not quite knowing what to buy. It seemed a little early for some of the goodies (eg Christmas cakes and puddings) but I thought one little box of Jaffa cakes couldn’t hurt, and I wanted to take some of the Christmas spirit home.
These Jaffa cakes are referred to as a Christmas edition due to the seasonal cranberry contained within the jelly layer, but there is still some citrus goodness mixed in to keep to the Jaffa name. I pulled out the tray from within the box and was rather impressed by the dark nature of the chocolate on the biscuits.
The biscuits are quite thin, but look smart and would be perfect with an after dinner coffee. The sponge layer is chocolaty, but the main chocolate flavour comes from the lovely dark coating which is full of sweet cocoa taste. The jelly layer is quite surprising as it is rather zingy in nature, and combines a sharp cranberry taste with a shot of sharp citrus. The jelly complements the chocolate base really well and the two flavours balance each other out. The texture is all quite soft, with sponge, jelly and a thin layer of chocolate this makes them rather easy eating I’m afraid.
These biscuits (cakes?) may not appeal to the younger market as the flavours are quite mature, and there isn’t that burst of sweetness you might expect. I loved the grown up flavours, and have to say the box disappeared embarrassingly quickly, which is always a good sign. ;-)

By Cinabar

Heston: Puff Pastry Mince Pies With Pine Sugar (Waitrose) [By @Cinabar]

These mince pies are a Waitrose exclusive, created for the store by Heston Blumenthal. Last year his inspired orange Christmas pudding sold out of every branch, and people were fighting for them on Ebay for silly amounts of money. The Christmas pudding contained a whole orange, and was decorated in orange slices too – much like the one Aldi has brought out this year...
These new mince pies were much easier to find with shelf loads of the things all around Waitrose, they were on the end of aisles, by the tills, in the Christmas section and also in the cake section! I think they were expecting a horde of people descending and had prepared early. Sadly I noticed a lot of the boxes had sell by dates for November, which means they wouldn’t even last until the event. Having said that the ones we purchased were devoured within a couple of days being bought, but it is best to keep an eye on the dates in case you were planning to put them in the store cupboard.
The mince pies come in quite a plain black box, which does look quite classy, but also very minimalistic and not that seasonal. This year’s unique selling point is that the mince pies smell of Christmas. This is a bit of an odd concept, but I suppose we would expect no less from Mr Blumenthal who is famed for playing with the senses. In effect there are six pies in the box, which you heat in the oven for ten minutes and then sprinkle with a sachet of pine sugar, also included.


The pies are also non-traditional in the sense that they are square in shape and have a puff pastry top. This met with mild disapproval from the taste testers, and Spectre said they were the ‘wrong sort of pies’ as he prefers the classic concept. Having said this they warmed up nicely and gave off sweet appetising and fragrant aromas in the oven. Once out, and just before serving, I opened the sachet of pine sugar. Oh my, it has an amazingly strong smell. It could clear your nose! It does indeed encapsulate the essence of a Christmas tree, but I’m afraid I associate that fragrance with bath foam more than food. It has strong pine tones, with eucalyptus and was almost menthol in its nature. The smell was enough for a couple of the taste testers to quit before they had begun, as they protested “don’t put any of that on mine”. I’m not a big menthol fan, so I tasted a little of the sugar on its own, and it had a surprisingly mild flavour. It was a delicate, fragrant taste, with a strong sweetness from the sugar overpowering any off putting elements. I sprinkled the sugar on, and the pies looked very pretty, almost as if they were snow coated.
Next the taste test. I can confirm by this point despite the shocking smell from the sugar it had no noticeable flavour other than the obvious sweetness you’d expect. This was more than a bit surprising, but was a relief to those who were put off. The mince meat filling had a good taste to it, with rich dark flavours, and an aftertaste of lemon which balanced them out really well. I felt the mince meat was lacking moisture somehow, it is not that it was dry, its more that regular mince pies are a little wetter and that was what I was expecting. The pastry base was quite nice, but a little firm and difficult to bite, or cut with a spoon (we were being posh) but the puff pastry top was buttery and pleasant. I felt that the pies were a nice novelty and were perfectly enjoyable. It was fun to give them a try as they were quite different to others on the market, but I’m afraid taste testers felt they broke the rules of tradition a little too much. Worth trying as they are quite unique, but if I’m totally honest I won’t be rushing out for a second box.

By Cinabar

New Toblerone Snow Top (Sainsbury’s) [By @Cinabar]

This is a new bar coming out from a favourite company of mine for the winter, which is fitting as I associate Toblerone and Christmas. I’m not trying to wish bad weather on us, but this new Toblerone has a patch of snow sitting on top of its chocolate mountains. By that I mean the usual milk chocolate chunks of Toblerone are now part white chocolate and looks very smart.
Toblerone has always been a bit of an awkward shape, there really is no denying it. The design is very much based on visual effect and not ease of use. Breaking pieces off a Toblerone can be troublesome, particularly the large bars, but the shape always makes me smile so I always forgive them.
As per regular Toblerone this bar has lovely sticky pieces of almond and honey nougat mixed in with the chocolate, which do add a wonderful sweetness to the flavour. I love the combination of both honey and nut with chocolate, but I do have a rather sweet tooth. The milk chocolate is also quite sweet, however the extra section of white chocolate mellows the sugar adding a rich creamy taste to the bar. The white chocolate really comes through as an aftertaste, but it is a well placed smoothness at the end of each bite.
The bar hasn’t deviated much from the original recipe, and there is nothing in the flavour that changes the formula to any major extent. I can’t imagine anyone who likes regular Toblerone disliking this bar as there isn’t that much of a difference. I guess Toblerone played it safe, but I still can’t resist it as a seasonal treat even if it is just a regular Toblerone topped with a Christmas snow shower of white chocolate.

By Cinabar

Quality Street – My Purple Bar (Sainsbury’s) [By @cinabar]

It has to be said I am a big fan of the purple ones in Quality Street. They come in a smart purple wrapper and consist of chocolate, caramel and nut. When Christmas rears its head, I also get excited about the GIANT Purple Ones that appear in the shops. I love all the ingredients and the novelty of a giant looking sweet. Perhaps that’s why I was disappointed by this new bar, as I fear it is its replacement.
This year Quality Street is launching this strange bar with four regular purple ones stuck together. Essentially it is just that, four of the chocolates in a line with a bit chocolate pipeline in between.
As Purple Ones are in my favourite Quality Street chocolates it won’t surprise you that I thoroughly enjoyed the bar. I broke one of the chocolates off and it was exactly the same sweet you’d find in the box. The chocolate was thick, the caramel sweet and gooey and one singular hazelnut inside added the nutty goodness. It was all very enjoyable flavour wise but I felt something was missing. The shape is quite different to other bars on the market, and it does look interesting, but I think I have a soft spot for the original Christmassy giant one. You can’t go wrong with big chocolate, all that oozing caramel and the multiple nuts hidden inside made a wonderful treat. If I’d never had a Giant Purple One I would be giving this bar
a much more positive report, but the fear that it has replaced one of my favourite seasonal treats does make me a little sad. It does have all my favourite ingredients in one bar – so I really ought to be loving it.
One thing that stood out was the calories were per half bar... I do hope Quality Street weren’t expecting me to share, or to eat it in two servings? I don’t mean to be greedy but the bar really isn’t that big! And did I mention it’s made of my favourite chocolates!
If anyone does sees a giant purple one back in the shops this year – would you please let me know below? I’ll report back if I find one too! *fingers crossed*

By Cinabar

Aero: Christmas Tree [Mint Chocolate] (Sainsbury’s) [By @Cinabar]

I feel like I should be almost apologetic bringing you the second Christmas write up in September in two days. I actually purchased this at the same time as the Galaxy Gift, and if it’s any consolation there aren’t any more seasonal products planned this week. I can’t promise about next week. ;-)
This choccie is just a simple novelty brought out by Aero for the stocking filler market. I have to say that there is a lot to be said for these smaller chocolate novelties, as they are nice looking but don’t commit you to eating a whole bar.
This particular Aero is shaped like a Christmas tree and then filled with light green mint bubbles. Flavour wise it is exactly like a regular mint Aero, sweet chocolate but with cool mint tones that are surprisingly refreshing. The bubbles in the chocolate mean that it gives easily when you bite, but still manages to feel substantial, which is the magic of aerated chocolate (that and it means the company get to sell you air)!
Having said that, I do like a mint Aero and I do like novelty, so this was actually right up my street. The moulding of the Christmas tree wasn’t quite as sharp as I’d like, but I guess moulding bubbles into place isn’t the easiest thing! The tree does look quite sweet though, so I can’t really complain but it reminded me of something that you’d find in a giant advent calendar. It might not make Christmas any more “enjoyabubble” in September but it certainly works as quick fun treat, and when the season does come in to play it will make an excellent stocking filler too.

By Cinabar