McVitie’s Penguin Bites - Salt and Vinegar (Ocado) By @Cinabar

What is going on here with these McVitie’s Penguin Salt and Vinegar Bites? I mean, when you think McVitie’s Penguin, you think thick chocolate biscuit bars. We’ve written about quite a few McVitie’s Penguin products over the years, but one thing has always been consistent: they’ve been chocolatey and biscuit flavoured. This is about as far away from that as I can work out. Salt and vinegar? And I think they’re crisps?

Well, we decided to open them and have them as a snack while watching The Devil Wears Prada (the first one, as a reminder before the new one). I opened up the bag and was surprised that they’re tiny too. From the image on the packet, I assumed these would be crisp-sized. In fact, the Penguin pictured on the front are a few centimetres tall, while the actual ones are finger nail sized! They’re teeny tiny and, consequently, not that easy to share. They are at least Penguin-shaped, just baby Penguins. Maybe premature.

I gave a few a try. One on its own doesn’t feel like it’s worth it. Now, here are the positives: they have a nice crunch and a taste of a cream cracker, but with lashings of salt and vinegar. And that’s where they win me over. They’re full of flavour and really nice. We ended up pouring them out into our own bowls, though, just because scooping them out of the bag when they’re so small was kind of awkward.

So, I’m not sure the connection to the Penguin brand is that strong, but as a cute salt and vinegar snack, they’re all good.

McVities Penguin Caramel Flavour (Ocado) By @SpectreUK

A McVities Penguin chocolate bar was one of those treats my mom would give me, whilst I watched cartoons after I returned home from school. I have eaten many Penguin bars since, and it's nice to see a new flavour.

This McVities Penguin Caramel Flavour is a chocolate and caramel flavoured cream filled biscuit bar, with a milk chocolate coating. On opening the bar there was a milk chocolate and sweet caramel aroma. Good start.

On taste this McVities Penguin Caramel Flavour biscuit bar did not disappoint. It was gorgeous. In fact I liked the edition of caramel more than the original Penguin bar. In my opinion the addition of sweet caramel to the chocolate cream filling enhanced the bar, and made it all the more moreish. If that's a phrase.

Information on the packet: Each of the 7 McVities Penguin Caramel Flavour bars have 130 calories, 6.7g of fat, 10.2g of sugar and 0.05g of salt. Please see photograph for the ingredients.

Penguin Chocolate Milkshake Cake Bars (Texaco) By @Cinabar

I spotted these Penguin Chocolate Milkshake Cake Bars on the counter at the petrol station when we stopped for a refuel. We’d already picked up some treats, but these were an impulsive last-minute addition. They were reduced and close to their best-before date, so I’m guessing they were the tail end of a summer special. Chocolate milkshake also feels more like a summer flavour than an autumn one.

Let’s be honest, chocolate milkshake is a bit of an odd choice for a flavour. I like it as a drink, but it’s not chocolate at its best, it’s milky, low in cocoa, and not something I’d expect to inspire a cake bar. Still, I opened the packet to see what they were like. Inside, there’s a light brown crème filling sandwiched with sponge, all covered in milk chocolate.

The taste is nice enough. They’re essentially just chocolatey cake bars, maybe a touch creamier than usual. I might have missed these over the summer, but I’ll happily enjoy them now before they’re gone. The flavour isn’t groundbreaking, but it’s perfectly pleasant.

McVitie’s Penguin & Friends (Iceland) By @SpectreUK

I like little calorie controlled bags of chocolate biscuits. They're supposed to be for kid's lunchboxes, I guess, but I like to tip them on top of a tub of low calorie ice cream on an evening as part of my pudding. These McVitie's Penguin & Friends are McVitie's take on all the other biscuit bag varieties out there. I love Penguins, I have done since I used to have one everyday in my lunchbox as a child, so now I'm going to try mini Penguins on my evening tub of ice cream.

I opted for vanilla ice cream to try with these cocoa flavoured Penguin and other animal shaped biscuits. On opening the packet you can see the cocoa coloured animal shaped McVitie's Penguin & Friends biscuits. On first taste these biscuits had a lovely crunch to them. Though that's were the fun stopped.

On first taste I was taken aback. These cute little Penguin and friends biscuits shapes are crunchy indeed, but not very chocolaty, not very sweet and they were actually quite dry in texture and flavour. These McVitie's Penguin & Friends biscuits could be mistaken for savoury biscuits, they could possibly be eaten with cheese. They definitely needed my ice cream more than my ice cream needed them. I think I'll leave it at that.

Information on the packet; There are 5 x packets at 91 calories per bag, with 3g of fat, 4.9g of sugar, and 0.2g of salt. Made with no artificial colours or flavours. Please see photograph for the ingredients.

New McVities Mini Penguin Biscuits (Morrisons) By @Cinabar

These were listed on the Morrisons online page under new grocery items, and so I added them to my virtual basket. I like Penguin bars, and have them as an occasional lunch box treat. These new McVities Mini Penguin Biscuits looked like they would do the same job. Inside the multi-pack are six small bags all containing eight mini penguin biscuits.

When I say penguin, I really do mean penguin, the biscuits are cutely shaped as laughing penguins. They did make me smile, who doesn’t want to bite the head off a laughing chocolate biscuit penguin….

Each of the biscuits has one side dipped in chocolate, and the biscuit themselves are also chocolate flavoured. They have a nice flavour, sweet and chocolatey, and a lovely crunchy texture. There was a flavour of the Penguin bars about them, which I think was emphasised by the slightly wheaty taste, and they were very pleasing to munch on.
These are a lovely accompaniment to an afternoon coffee, and worked well as a pick-me-up on a busy, post relaxing weekend, Monday. I am going to enjoy having these in my lunchbox as a treat, and at 118 calories in the bag, I shan’t even feel to guilty about them.

Penguin Toffee Edition (Waitrose) [By @Cinabar]

It seems like it has been to long since the iconic British Penguin biscuit last got a mention here at Foodstuff Finds. I am pleased to report that on a recent supermarket trip I spotted their new toffee flavour, and p-p-picked up a pack to try. Although I don’t have Penguin bars that often, there is something wonderfully nostalgic about them to me, and they remind me of school packed lunches and afternoon treats.
Once I opened up the multipack, I spotted that each of the individually wrapped biscuits had a penguin related joke on the wrapper. It’s a nice touch, and it made me smile. I used to love it when you’d buy an ice lolly and there would be a joke on the lollipop stick, but I haven’t seen that for a good while either.
“Who do penguins wear glasses? … To help their ice-sight!”
Once I opened up the wrapper, I was impressed by the aroma of the chocolate and toffee, there was lots of lovely sweet tones that were very appealing. The bar consists of two layers of chocolate biscuit, with a toffee and chocolate crème filling, and the whole biscuit is dipped in milk chocolate.
The biscuits are lovely and sweet, the crunch from the biscuit is nice and firm, and the softness of the crème sandwiched in the middle adds a nice dimension to the texture. The toffee flavour is rather rich, but the milky chocolate helps calm it. I can imagine that eating a few of these might be a bit sickly, but a single serving with a cup of coffee was pretty much biscuit heaven.

By Cinabar

Penguin Caramel Wafer (Sainsbury’s) [By @Cinabar]

The wafer variety of Penguin has obviously been selling well because McVities is expanding the range with a caramel variant (insert moan here about caramel being a bit of a safe option for companies).
As ever the Penguins are individually packed, each with a joke on the wrapper in order to bring a smile with your sugar fix. I like the fact they are individually wrapped as it means I can tuck one away in my lunch box quite easily and save it for an afternoon treat at work.
I unpacked the Penguin bar taking it out of its wrapper, and deliberately breaking it in half. I was a little disappointed to discover that there wasn’t any notable runny caramel oozing out of the bar.


All that could be seen was a smidgen of caramel between the wafers, and you had to look rather closely to find that! I bit in and the caramel flavour was clear enough to the taste buds, even if it hadn’t been visible. It was a pleasant buttery sweet flavour that worked well with the wafers and milky chocolate. The caramel was also present in the texture, adding a slight chewiness to the bar that made it feel just a little bit more substantial as you tucked into its crisp layers.
Although not an adventurous flavour this Penguin Caramel Wafer does do what it says on the pack, and make and enjoyable treat, especially with an afternoon coffee.

By Cinabar

McVities Penguin Bakes (Asda)

I found this product in the cereal bar section of the supermarket, not the biscuit aisle which is the traditional place to find Penguin products. This was the first clue that this product was going to be a little bit different from regular Penguin items.
Inside the packet were six individually wrapped ‘bakes’, each consisting of a bar marked into three pieces. On the inside of the bar is a soft filling, it is very reminiscent of the proper Penguin bar chocolate filling and was very pleasant. The coating though is a little strange, it is chocolaty in taste but in texture it is more like that of a dry Nutrigrain bar, which unfortunately let the whole product down a little. The bakes each had a nice flavour, but needed a better moister casing.

Penguin Double Chocolate Big Stix (Waitrose)

I take it back when I wrote here that it was unusual to see the word ‘New’ on a penguin packet, but I was clearly wrong. Less than two months later I found another new Penguin product. This is not a complaint as I love new products!

When I opened the box I was surprised that the ‘big stix’ were actually surprisingly long and thin, with two in each pack! The ingredient ratios don’t seem to work well together though, certainly not as well as a regular bar. There is a little too much biscuit and not enough yummy cool fondant. This makes for a much drier product and it’s not a regular Penguin beater.*

*No penguins were beaten or harmed during the production of this write-up.

Penguin Wafer – (Sainsbury’s)

It’s been a while since I saw ‘New’ and ‘Penguin’ on the same packet! But it’s not a new flavour of the Penguin biscuit bars, it’s a whole new style of Penguin biscuit. In fact the regular biscuit has been replaced with wafer so they are a very different type of snack. Don’t worry, the distinctive Penguin chocolate fondant filling is still present, which is just as well. Am I the only one that thinks the filling is almost cool in temperature? The usual milk chocolate is still there too and it combines very well with the new addition of chocolate flavoured wafer. Surprisingly good!