McVitie’s Harry Potter Cookies Butterbeer Flavour (Ocado) By @Cinabar

With the Harry Potter series back in the spotlight after recent casting news, it feels like the brand is everywhere again. One of the most iconic treats from the books and films is Butterbeer, so it was only a matter of time before it turned up in biscuit form.

These McVitie’s cookies caught my eye online as they sounded a bit different. Butterbeer flavour is not something you see every day, so curiosity got the better of me. On closer inspection though, they are essentially butterscotch flavoured cookies with white chocolate chips, which does make a bit more sense.

Once opened, the first thing I noticed was the size. They felt a little smaller than expected, but that might just be my preference for a chunkier biscuit.

Flavour wise, they are pleasant enough. There are hints of vanilla and caramel coming through, giving that sweet, slightly creamy profile you would associate with butterscotch. That said, the flavour does not quite hit the richer, deeper notes I was hoping for. The white chocolate chips do a lot of the heavy lifting, adding both sweetness and a nice bit of texture.

I do have a sweet tooth, so these worked well for me, but I cannot help feeling they played it a bit safe. With a name like Butterbeer and the Harry Potter branding, I was expecting something a bit more distinctive or indulgent.

Still, a nice enough biscuit, just not quite as magical as the packaging suggests.

McVitie’s Summer Collection Strawberries and Cream Flavour (Iceland) By @Cinabar

I spotted these new Strawberries and Cream cake bars from McVitie’s in Iceland and, as a sucker for anything that screams summer, they were straight into the basket. Strawberries and cream is such a classic warm weather flavour, it is hard to resist.

The packaging is bright, bold and almost a bit punk in its colour scheme, so they definitely stand out on the shelf. Inside, the bars are individually wrapped, which makes them perfect for lunch boxes, desk drawers or a quick grab and go treat.

As soon as I opened the first one, I was hit with a lovely strong scent of strawberry and chocolate. Always a good sign. The cake itself is a soft vanilla sponge, topped with a pretty pink strawberry flavoured creme and finished with a layer of milk chocolate.

Flavour wise, they are very sweet and properly fruity. They actually reminded me of those strawberry cream chocolates you get in the big tins at Christmas. There is a solid chocolate hit from the coating too, so it does not feel like just a fruity sponge bar. It is definitely more indulgent than that.

They are genuinely yummy, the only downside being that they disappear in about two bites. Still, as a little summery treat, they are spot on. If you love that strawberries and cream combination, these are well worth picking up while they are around.

McVitie's Summer Collection Pineapple & Coconut (Iceland) By @SpectreUK

It's still pretty cold, dark and damp outside. We've seen plenty of snacks for Easter time, but these McVitie's Cake Bars are the first limited edition summer products we've found on the shelves.

There is Strawberries and Cream Flavour available, which we'll blog about soon. First I wanted to try these McVitie's Summer Collection Pineapple & Coconut Flavour Cake Bars. These cake bars are milk chocolate coated with a layer of pineapple and coconut flavoured cream.

On opening the packet there were five individually wrapped cake bars inside. On opening the first cake bar wrapper, there was an aroma of pineapple and coconut to the milk chocolate coated cake bar inside.

This McVitie's Summer Collection Pineapple & Coconut Flavour Cake Bar was soft to bite into and had a creamy flavour of pineapple and coconut, with milk chocolate to finish. It was really gorgeous, and perfect for a lunchbox snack.

Information on the packet; Each cake bar has 95 calories, with 4.5g of fat, 9.3g of sugar and 0.11g of salt. Please see photograph for the ingredients.

New McVitie’s Club Layers Orange (Tesco) By @SpectreUK

Any child of the eighties knows the high pitched theme tune for McVitie's Club. "If you like a lot of chocolate on Your biscuit join our Club." McVitie's have recently got into trouble for decreasing coco in their chocolate and may have to add "chocolate flavoured coating" to some of their bars. However, not with this New McVitie's Club Layers Orange. This is a "Milk Chocolate covered wafer bar with orange flavoured cream filling."

On opening the wrapper this New McVitie's Club Layers Orange smelt exactly like an original Orange flavoured Club bar. It was unmistakable. I haven't had one in years, but the smell made me want to bite in immediately. And so I did.

On first taste this New McVitie's Club Layers Orange had the same orange flavour cream filling I remember from the original orange flavoured Club bar. There was then the crunchy wafer flavour, which was obviously different, been as though there was no wafer in the original. This orange wafer layered bar was completed perfectly with the familiar milk chocolate coating. I really enjoyed this orange flavoured chocolate wafer bar and would definitely go back for more. I'm in the Club, are you?

McVitie's Hobnobs Dark Chocolate Flavour Chips Oaty Cookies (Sainsbury’s) By @Cinabar

You can’t beat a mug of hot chocolate and a new biscuit for dunking. That was the plan when I spotted these McVitie's Hobnobs Dark Chocolate Flavour Chips Oaty Cookies on the shelf in Sainsbury’s. The only clue that they were new was the little label on the shelf edge, as the packet itself didn’t shout about it.

Back at home, I put the kettle on and opened the packet. The aroma was instantly inviting, that classic Hobnob oaty smell with a good hit of chocolate. They looked promising, and I dunked one straight into my hot chocolate. Disaster. The biscuit gave up, crumbling into a mess of oat and chocolate specks. I gave it a second chance, this time without dunking, and found the texture still crumbly, but at least intact on its own.

Texture aside, the flavour is spot on. They have that wholesome Hobnob taste with plenty of oat, balanced by little bursts of dark chocolate. Not overly sweet, with the cocoa adding a slightly richer, grown-up edge. I found them very moreish, despite the mess they make. So yes, these are a dunking disaster, but eaten dry they’re absolutely divine.

McVitie’s Hobnobs Ice Cream (Iceland) By @cinabar

I know summer feels like it’s winding down, but I still have new ice creams to explore. This one really caught my attention, Hobnobs Ice Cream. I love the idea of turning a classic biscuit into an ice cream flavour.

I ordered it online with my grocery shop and, I’ll be honest, I’d hoped the tub would be bigger. It’s quite a small pot, but it looks great with the full Hobnobs branding. Inside, the ice cream is biscuit-flavoured with a golden syrup sauce swirled through as an added bonus. The ice cream was fairly firm straight from the freezer, but there were plenty of biscuit pieces mixed in and a generous amount of sauce. From the first spoonful my sweet tooth was in heaven. The base flavour is creamy, oaty, and unmistakably Hobnobs biscuit, it tastes properly indulgent. Then you get a hit of that golden syrup swirl and it becomes truly divine. Maybe the smaller tub is a blessing in disguise, this is so moreish that portion control is definitely needed.

If you’re a Hobnobs fan, this ice cream is an absolute must-try.

McVities Gold Billions Wafer [@NLi10]

 I know we talked about these a couple of years ago, but I think they must have been limited then as my store had a few and then they vanished.  And now they seem to be back! The corner shop had a box on the counter which I managed to resist.

Fortunately my partner did not so we got to share one.

Veggie friendly, and presumably reduced sugar and fat to be treatwise

Base is regular chocolate for structural integrity

Top is that odd caramel chocolate for deep and interesting flavours

And the inside is a combo of wafers and creme, much more of a Euro snack than a British one - which is great!

I think the flavours need to be more powerful for me, but fortunately the Polish supermarkets have powerful wafers to fill that need and this can be enjoyed as the delicate chocolaty sensation that it is.

Until it vanishes again at least. 

McVitie’s Jaffa Cakes Hot Honey (Morrisons) By @SpectreUK

I love McVitie's Jaffa Cakes. I can happily eat a whole packet. I nibble around the edges of each one, bite off the orange jelly filling, enjoy the flavour, and then pop the rest of the cake in my mouth. I can't help it, I'm a bit of a child.

I saw these new McVitie's Jaffa Cakes Hot Honey flavour in our local supermarket. They are honey flavour, with a little orange juice and a kick of chilli. I take it's meant as a waker-upper for those who are falling asleep over their afternoon tea, or in a boring meeting at work.

On opening the packet there was an aroma of honey, a touch of orange, dark chocolate, and with a little of something else. I take it that 'something else' was the chilli. Of course, I ate my McVitie's Jaffa Cakes Hot Honey in the usual way.

On tasting the Hot Honey jelly, there was mild honey sweetness, whereas the added orange juice made it taste slightly of Manuka Honey, and a mouth warming medium chilli kick at the back of the flavour with the dark chocolate coating. These will be good in Autumn and Winter, which are fast approaching.

Information on the box; The box contained ten cakes at 41 calories per cake, 0.9g of fat, 5.3g of sugar, and 0.03g of salt.

McVitie's PINK Digestives - Raspberry & Cream flavour [@NLi10]

 We love pink on this blog, and it's a fight to see who finds and reviews the latest pink things.

We also have a pink bedroom, which is perfect for these new, limited edition McVitie's pink digestives - they are raspberry & cream flavour from Sainsbury's

And Pink Marvel artwork to show that these are really just regular (shrunk) digestives with a pink not-chocolate coating.  But that's fine too - I love pink mice, and non-chocolate chocolates.

The biscuits show up much better on the black & gold

My childhood memories of digestives have them at least 25% larger than this, but then everything has to conform to the insane portion size rules now (even though I'm allowed to eat all 15 in the pack because I'm a grown-up and no-one will ever know except you guys).  The charts on the front are per biscuit so nothing flags as red, but three biscuits is 36% of my 'saturates' for the day.

They also aren't so pink as to feel unhealthy, we get the idea but will not end up with red tongues.

And the flavour balance is good.  The fondant seems too thin on inspection, but if you put much more on it'd overpower the crunch and earthy tastes of the digestive.  While I'm happy this is the literal flavour of the month (they even put stickers on the floor to alert you to their presence) I hope this is part of a trend and we can get mandarin ones in a lovely pale orange.  Easy Halloween win there for any biscuit-makers that stumble across this.

Overall a win, but not really ideal in a heat-wave so I'll have to buy more once the sun has calmed down a bit.

McVitie’s Digestives Caramel Millionaire Slices (Ocado) – By @Cinabar

I picked up these McVitie’s Digestives Caramel Millionaire Slices as a snack for that awkward post-work, pre-dinner window. I fancied something chocolatey to round off the day. I’ve always been a fan of Digestives, so throwing caramel and chocolate into the mix sounded like a win.

Inside the pack, I found the slices were individually wrapped. Not great for the environment, granted, but very handy for lunch boxes. The first thing that struck me, though, was how small they were. I’d been expecting something more substantial, but they’re only a couple of bites each.

That said, they were seriously tasty. The Digestives flavour came through nicely with a thick, firm base,  not crunchy, but with a solid texture. The caramel and chocolate layers made them sweet without being sickly, and the chocolate topping was a lovely final touch.

My only gripe? They didn’t quite satisfy that post-work hunger. I probably should’ve just had a second one.

McVities Signature Chocolate Cream Swirls (Ocado) By @SpectreUK

I don't think I've ever seen Chocolate Cream Swirls biscuits before. From the packet of these McVities Signature Chocolate Cream Swirls they look like a really complicated biscuit to make, but I guess they have machines for everything these days. A swirl of biscuit and chocolate biscuit sounds complicated enough to me, but they also have a gooey chocolate flavoured cream centre.

I like chocolate tea. It's rare I find a decent hot chocolate that tastes of actual chocolate, rather than water and reminiscence of chocolate, or something a bit milky with a chocolate aroma. Besides, chocolate tea has pretty much zero calories, so with fairly careful eating during the day, I managed to fit in the whole packet of McVities Signature Chocolate Cream Swirls in for my pudding, and with a pot of low calorie ice cream to accompany it.

First off I thought the packaging of these McVities Signature Chocolate Cream Swirls was pretty smart looking. It had a classical indulgent feel to the design. On opening, the dozen swirl patterned biscuits were very pretty indeed and with a gooey filling. The biscuits are smaller than expected. These biscuits do not snap, I tried for the photograph of the biscuit filling, and one half simply exploded and went everywhere. Don't try it at home. They do bite in half perfectly well though if you want to slowly indulge yourself like I did.

These McVities Signature Chocolate Cream Swirls had a soft creamy dark chocolate fondant inside. The outer biscuit and chocolate biscuit swirl was very crunchy indeed. I could taste the chocolate, and also taste the biscuit, and the sweet chocolate filling as everything washed around my palate. Every mouthful had all the chocolaty biscuity creamy flavours. These indulgent biscuits were really really nice, and went perfectly with my chocolate tea and caramel ice cream. Yum.

Information on the packet; There were 12 biscuits in the 142g packet, at 61 calories per biscuit, with 3.2g of fat, 4.2g of sugar, and 0.06g of salt. Please see photograph for the ingredients.

McVities Iced Gems Candy Floss Limited Edition (Iceland) By @Cinabar

I think I might have been around eight years old when I last had Iced Gems. I remember the cute little biscuits with a dollop of solid icing from my childhood. I specifically remember having a bag of them as an after-school treat, but I just don’t remember buying any in adulthood. I do remember the flavour though, the sweet, sugary goodness and crunchy biscuit. What prompted me to buy them again after all this time was the inevitable ‘limited edition’ label that lured me in, and what an interesting new flavour. Here we have McVities Iced Gems Candy Floss Limited Edition.

Inside the pack are 5 mini packs for a portion-controlled snack. Inside the bag, they do look the same; some had pink and some had blue icing on top, and some had the icing fall off. The aroma was slightly different; it had a much stronger, sugary scent, unless my memory was playing tricks on me.

I gave one a try, and the nostalgic crunch was all there. I could remember the crispy icing, and it took me back to childhood. The flavour is as sugary as you would expect, but there is also a slightly burnt sugar taste, the candy floss element. There was enough of the original flavour for it to bring back the memories, but the twist of candy floss was there, and it worked too. I absolutely loved eating Little Gems again, and this McVities Iced Gems Candy Floss Limited Edition was so nice. They also made me feel like a giant with these tiny biscuits. I will try and pick them up more regularly now as an afternoon snack; they are too good to leave it so long before having them again. 

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.

McVities Mini Gingerbread Men (Sainsburys) By @Cinabar

I love the flavours of autumn; all the spices come out to play. McVities has brought out these Mini Gingerbread Men in portion-controlled bags. The design of the bag is rather cute, with gingerbread men with sunglasses, walking their dogs, and... what is the gingerbread man bottom right doing? Is that a lamp chop or a bag of swag? Oh well, perhaps it is best to focus on the contents.

There are six bags of biscuits in the pack. Each bag has a balanced 88 calories; I wasn’t expecting to find very many mini gingerbread men in each pack for that. I opened up one of the mini bags and was pleased to see seven mini gingerbread men, a decent amount and perfect to have dunked in hot chocolate. I do autumn properly.

The biscuits have a nice flavour and a good crunch. There is sweetness and a gentle spice, which I rather liked. They are a good size for having with a cuppa, but the mini nature of the gingerbread men might make them appeal to those decorating an autumn cake too. I can see these decorating the top of a carrot cake and looking ever so cute. 

McVitie’s Digestives White Chocolate (Ocado) By @SpectreUK

I do love white chocolate. I have done so since I was very young. I also prefer my hot chocolate of an evening, white chocolate, as I find it so much more creamy and indulgent. I find a big white chocolate bar and a hot white chocolate drink a perfect treat at the end of the day. So, these McVitie's Digestives White Chocolate biscuits and a hot white chocolate drink should be the perfect pick me up I need.

 

After making my favourite Whittard's White Chocolate drink, I opened the packet of McVitie's Digestives White Chocolate biscuits. There was a sweet aroma of white chocolate and digestive biscuits from the contents of the packet. Good start. Though on first glance I thought that the white chocolate topping could have been a little bit thicker, mainly because I am greedy.

There was certainly a creamy flavour from the white chocolate topping, and then the sweetness from the digestive biscuit blended in nicely with the creaminess. I still reckon the white chocolate topping could have been more generous, but I did really enjoy these McVitie's Digestives White Chocolate biscuits, especially washed down with my white hot chocolate drink.

Information on the packet; The packet contained 15 biscuits at 78 calories per biscuit, with 3.8g of fat, 4.6g of sugar, and 0.14g of salt. Please see photograph for the ingredients.

Mcvities Hobnobs Coconut Macaroon Flapjacks (Tesco) By @Cinabar

I spotted these in the supermarket and thought I’d give them a try. They were also on a club card price of just £1, so that helped with the temptation. The first thing I notice, and I’m not sure how well it shows up on the photo, is that these are small bars, very small bars. The box they are in is bigger than them, and the wrapper they are in is also baggy on them. 

 

I gave one a try, and I did like the flavour. They aren’t as sweet as traditional flapjacks, but there is still a nice oat flavour with a hint of syrup. Wholesome but mild. The coconut is a bit too mild too, but it is present if you look for it.

In conclusion, these are pleasant enough but not that exciting. I started off disappointed by how small they were, and then the flavour could have been so much more. They were drying out for a drizzle of chocolate.

McVities’s Raspberry flavour Tartlets (Tesco) By @SpectreUK

I'm not one of those people who works out like hell to just eat lettuce. I don't mind lettuce in a salad or a BLT, but I love a good pudding. I have a bad habit of counting my calories all day so I can leave room for a good dessert. It doesn't have to be anything fancy either, it could be just a packet of biscuits.

Now my greedy old self who used to be seventeen and a half stone would just eat the packet of biscuits. After three knee operations and five years of weight loss, I still want to eat that whole packet. So I burn it off through exercise. It's not for everyone I know. I get up really early and just keep going until lunchtime, and that can get pretty late on some days. The mountain, as I call it, isn't much fun, it's painful and time consuming, but just as long as I stick to my regular calorie level for the end of the day, and eat pretty healthily for lunch and my dinner, I get to eat whatever pudding a like.

These McVities's Raspberry flavour Tartlets are on my pudding menu for tonight, with a pot of low calorie vanilla ice cream. Now a 70 calorie pot of vanilla ice cream will go with just about anything. I've even used it instead of using Brandy Cream on a Christmas Pudding, and gosh, that was good.

These McVities's Raspberry flavour Tartlets have a creamy and fruity centre. Oh I really do wish that some manufacturer or other would bring out a low calorie pot of Raspberry Ripple ice cream. Now that would be a day for celebration. Anyway, on opening the packet there was a super strong raspberry ripple aroma from the biscuits inside. Lovely and crunchy these Tartlets had a luscious creamy sweet raspberry flavour. Moreish to the extreme, I barely opened the ice cream before half the packet had disappeared. Gosh these are good.

Information on the wrapper; With 14 biscuits in the 100g packet, each biscuit contains 35 calories, with 1.8g of fat, 1.7g of sugar, and 0.06g of salt. Please see photograph for the ingredients.