You’re Paw Some [Chocolates] (M&S) by @cinabar

These You’re Paw Some chocolates caught my eye in M&S. From the box, I would guess these are meant as a gift, either for thanking someone or as a birthday treat, but you should know I bought these for myself to snack on. In my defence, there are only four in the box. They were just too cute to walk away from.

When I opened the pack, I found the chocolates beautifully moulded into the shape of sausage dogs, with lots of detail and looking fab. They actually look slightly better in real life than they do on the box, which never normally happens.

The chocolates are pure milk chocolate and are solid. The chocolate is decent, sweet with plenty of cocoa, and generally quite nice. I thought they could have used Belgian chocolate to make them a bit more special, or perhaps a caramel filling, as the chocolate doesn’t quite do all the work on its own.

The super-cute design is doing the heavy lifting here. I just wish they had backed it up with a little something extra in the taste.

Belgian Milk Chocolate Office Bunnies (Aldi) By @Cinabar

It is coming up to Easter, and that mean chocolate bunnies! These super smart Office Bunnies are from Aldi and made by Moser Roth who makes a lot of chocolate for them. There are two varieties available, Dark chocolate with Salted Caramel and Blonde Chocolate with Milk Chocolate Salted Ganache. Both sets of chocolate office bunnies look smart in the box and even have their office ties on, presumably to do the administration work for Easter. The two different types are almost mirrored images of each other, one with caramel inside and one on the outside.

Dark chocolate and Salted Caramel

I bit into one of these, and most importantly, the crack of the chocolate was perfect; it had a lovely bite to it, but it still gave nicely to the lush caramel within. Inside there was smooth runny caramel, with a hint of salt, and loads of rich brown sugar and toffee like flavours. The coating was very good quality dark chocolate.

Blonde Chocolate with Milk Chocolate Salted Ganache

The chocolate has a lovely rich sweetness to it, almost candy-like. Again, the bite was really good in terms of texture. The chocolate filling contrasts well with the blonde toffee-flavoured coating, and I liked the touch of salt.

They taste as good as they look.

Bunny Bao Buns (Marks and Spencer) By @Cinabar

I think this is my first bao bun; I know NLi10 has tried them, and written about them, but I am pretty sure I haven’t bought one before. These were from Marks and Spencer and the Bunny Bao Buns looked so cute that I couldn’t resist. It is, after all, the year of the rabbit, and I think bao buns are Chinese?

 

This particular bun contains a plum sauce with vegetables and is quickly heated in the microwave to cook. I gave it a try and was very impressed with it. Not only was it cute, it was also super tasty. The filling was heavy on the plum sauce, and that worked for me. As I really like texture, the crispy vegetables and soft dough were a winner. It was such a nice combination. The bao buns were just spot on; they had such a nice soft and pillowy texture. The vegetable filling is also well seasoned, adding a nice balance of flavours. The bao buns are also filled with plenty of vegetables, making them satisfying and healthy. I will buy these again, they are perfect for a quick working-from-home casual lunch and perfect to heat up between meetings.

Original Gourmet Cutie Cakes (Spa) By @Cinabar

Twinkies are not that easy to find in the UK but we do sometimes get them in the big shops but more often than not they are in import stores. I have had them and do find myself adding them to my shop when I find them, as they are quite rare over here. I say this because when I popped to the Spa shop and saw these they looked like a similar type of cake bar to them. These are cuter though, in fact each one had a character on the front and they are even called Original Gourmet Cutie Cakes. They were on offer too at three for a pound, so that sealed the deal and I popped them in my basket.
The decoration of the face is all on the wrapper so once out they do look a little plain. Inside the sponge is a neat chocolate creme filling, light in colour. The sponge is golden and fairly firm but with a nice vanilla taste. The chocolate creme is mild, light and sweet with a gentle cocoa flavour. It would be hard for me to compare these directly to Twinkies as I haven’t actually had them that regularly, but I think these were very similar just a little firmer.
So the Original Gourmet Cutie Cakes are an impulse buy, they brought a smile to my face and tasted good, so I think that was job done. It is also nice to have something similar to the American classic cake that is easy to obtain in the UK. I’d buy some more for Halloween treats, I’m just not convinced I’d share! ;-)

My Cat's Advent Calendar (by @NLi10)

As pointed out earlier in the week the Advent calendar is nice no matter what your age.  In early November our local pet shop had this which proved that species should not be a limiting factor either.

This is an Advent calendar full of the highly-additive for cats Dreamies - which are made by the same people as Mars and feature adverts of cats jumping through brick walls.  As the calendar doesn't make the shakey-bag noise that attracts the cat and was sealed in foil it has been ignored by them until Dec 1st.

Here we see Duchess trying to figure out where the Dreamies are - they are hiding in the little deep pot.  I sprinkled some over the calendar and shared the rest out with the other two cats.

To me this was the end of it until it was time for the 2nd door, but opening the seal had unleashed the smell of 23 days worth of cat treats and Duchess was determined to find her way into the other doors (and poked her nose into the original hole just to check).

I think that she is convinced that she should be allowed to have them all at once - from the effect that a months supply of Mars bars would have on a human I'm guessing this isn't wise...

This has opened me up to the idea of edible advent calendars that don't contain chocolate.  Wouldn't it be good if there was one with a different retro sweet behind each door ( www.aquarterof.co.uk and www.thegobstopper.co.uk take note!).  This would be great as you'd have a fancy boiled sweet to suck on the way to work, or some liquorice or bubble gum and all the doors would be odd shapes to allow for packets of sherbet and other delights.  Surely that must be possible - even someone mainstream like Bassets could do one with all their varieties.

I'm not sure exactly what the cats would be counting down too as Christmas is a day where they are largely left to their own devices, but they do get a pull back and go mouse to play with for the final day.  I'm not sure that will be as popular as the edible surprises though, but we shall see.

The Gobstopper - Halloween Sweeties (by @NLi10)

The Gobstopper - Halloween Sweeties (by @NLi10)

Funky new sweet website 'The Gobstopper' sent me an e-mail asking if I'd like some sweets to review (YES!) and what I would like.  I suggested that they send some Halloween surprises and this is what I got!

What a little box of loveliness this is!  Putting them out on the table means you can get a better look at everything.  

Right at the front left we have Atomic Fireblast. I've had the Ferrara Pan super sour candy before and that is a test of endurance in a little green box (my boss once decided to have one off my desk and regretted it) but one that brightens up the afternoon.  This is a little yellow box of cinnamon flavoured misery!  It starts hot, goes quite nice in the middle and then burns up again towards the centre.  I didn't enjoy it.  This leaves a whole selection of these for the trick-or-treaters and for people at work.  Teenagers seem to like eating these on YouTube and making bad videos... Not for me.

Next up was the Fizz Wis super loud popping candy.  I wasn't allowed this as a child as my mom had read somewhere that it caused all kinds of maladies. I'm presuming this was not true.  This tastes pretty good, and is much more of a Treat than the Trick that the hot sweets were.  I will happily finish all this off, but in the spirit of the season shall donate to the younger Trick or Treaters that appear at the door.  One side note though is I had to stop eating it in front of Ms. NLi10 as it was freaking her out and caused her to try to leave the room.  Also - swallowing it doesn't stop the sound - it just moves further down - an odd sensation indeed.  Liked this a lot.

Next up we have the odd bag of what I first presumed to be toffees and then on opening was horified to discover it may be liquorice which I hate!  Fortunately I had a hunt on the website and found it was treacle toffee - a horribly deformed and burnt smelling oddity which they assure me tastes seasonal and isn't repulsive.  And they were right! After sampling the tiniest of bits to check for stealth-licourice I shoved a whole one in and enjoyed it to the end.  This is more of an adult thing than something kids would enjoy so I think that I may take these into work and may share them, and may not.

The big round intimidating thing in the background of the photo is a monster-gobstopper which would be perfect for shoving int the mouth of some undead horror before running away screaming.  I however do not have a flip-top head, and am at a loss on how to eat this without just hitting it with a hammer.  As a monster sized gobstopper is probably a once in a lifetime thing I've decided not to lick it just yet and to think about it.  I may donate it to one of our junior reviewers...

Overall I like the site, the parcel came fast and full of the pretend packing straw that works so well.  I think I possibly should have been more greedy and named things I wanted off the site, but if you look at the A-Z of sweets then I'm sure you'll see the same as me - loads of things that you just don't bump into anymore that cry out to be nommed.  I recommend any Halloween orders are placed pretty sharpish though as noon-monday is their deadline!

Review update:

As predicted I finally got a picture of the cat in the hamper from last week.

I think she's sailing off somewhere tropical, slightly transfixed by the fireplace...