White Chocolate Smarties (Morrisons) By @SpectreUK

I love white chocolate. That's no secret. I often have a bar or two of white chocolate for pudding with a white hot chocolate drink, and a tub of low calorie vanilla ice cream for pure indulgence. I used to like Nestle Smarties when I was young, many, many, many moons ago. So these new White Chocolate Smarties sound like a real treat.

When I enjoy other chocolate bar puddings, such as milk chocolate, I have a habit of tipping Minstrels into my tub of low calorie vanilla ice cream. I feel that Minstrels and vanilla ice cream were made for each other. That does make me wonder if these White Chocolate Smarties, and now indeed regular Smarties would be the same. Well, there's only one way to find out.

As you can see from the photograph on popping open the recyclable cardboard packaging (no original plastic Smarties tube tops here) there were a multitude of colours of White Chocolate Smarties. On biting one in half the Smartie was full of white chocolate. I thought these Smarties were nice and crunchy with smooth and creamy white chocolate inside. They also went rather well with my vanilla ice cream, so I'll have these again. A good bonus was that they made me feel young and gave me a smile.

Information on the tube; The 36g tube had 87 calories per half tube, with 3.6g of fat, 11.5g of sugar, and 0.05g of salt. Please see photograph for the ingredients.

Orange Smarties Chocolate Bar (Tesco) By @cinabar

Everyone knows orange Smarties are the best so it seems fitting they made it into their own chocolate, this Orange Smarties Bar. Not only that the wrapper is made of paper so it is more environmentally friendly which is nice. I need to remember to pop in the recycling though, I’m so use to binning chocolate bar wrappers which isn’t ok. The Orange Smarties Bar still had a decent sell by date too so the paper doesn’t seem to be effecting the chocolate so here is hoping more brands will switch to this.

 

Inside the wrapper is a fun looking slab of chocolate, but one that is difficult to share because the break lines are in odd places. These always look nice but if I’m honest I do like symmetry too, it just works! The chocolate is a nice milk chocolate which has orange Smarties dotted within it, the orange flavour is a little subdues because the milk chocolate isn’t orange flavoured but it is still there and tastes good. The crunch was nice but again more Smarties would have helped here too. I could alway buy one of those tubes of Smarties which are just Orange flavoured - they are card too so also recycle.

Smarties Buttons (Sainsbury's) By @SpectreUK

I can't help thinking that these Smarties Buttons should be called Smarties White Chocolate Buttons, as they are not milk chocolate. I haven't eaten Smarties for a good long while, but I am rather partial to white chocolate. I can remember that I did like Smarties, so the pair together sounds like a bright idea. They are also fairly low in calories, so they shouldn't be too much of a problem for portion control in order to help to maintain my current weight.

As you can see from the photograph, on opening the packet each Smarties Button had two or three mini Smarties wedged in their centre. These Smarties Buttons may not look altogether machine made, but they do taste great. They taste of creamy white chocolate followed by the crunchy texture from the miniature Smarties and also a mixture of flavours from those Smarties. Washed down by my white hot chocolate after dinner these Smarties Buttons were very tasty. I liked the crunchiness of them and the myriad of flavours that the embedded Smarties gave my tastebuds as I ate. I was glad I took the bag upstairs with me, as I know it states to share them on the front of the packet, but I'm far too selfish for that!

Information on the bag;
The 85g bag contains 77 calories per 6 pieces, with 3.9g of fat, 8.9g of sugar and 0.04g of salt. The ingredients have no artificial colours, flavours or preservations. Please see photograph below.

Unicorn Edition Smarties (Asda) By @Cinabar

It isn’t a food related trend, but Unicorns are definitely in at the minute. You can find unicorn designs on anything and everything, be it a swimming pool float to a new mug the unicorn design has made it in 2018. This does have some problems with food cross-overs as there isn’t an obvious flavour, but Smarties gave it a try, and to be honest I don’t think they hit the mark.
The bag is nicely decorate in its pink and blue with a unicorn design on the front. The packaging says fun, the contents say regular Smarties, just blue and pink coloured ones. Yes the concept works, I’ve eaten enough regular Smarties to know the formula is okay, it is just that there is nothing new here.
For me it is the fact that they could have done so much more. Smarties with an edible glitter covering, a new coloured shell, or even a two-tone shell, how about a unicorn design on the shell? So many possibilities. Smarties containing popping candy, heck even something as simple as a white chocolate filling would have made it look a bit more like they made an effort. Unicorns are magical, so it strikes me there should be something magical, or at least a bit more unique and innovative about Unicorn Smarties, not just regular pink and blue ones in a bag. As much as I like Smarties I was a bit disappointed at the lack of effort for this tie in product. It is all about the packaging, there is nothing else new to see here. I get that the pink and blue colours might be useful if you have bought the bag for use in a baking project, but I hardly think that was the target market. Come on Smarties, you had the opportunity to impress us and you chose the minimum effort option. Personally I’ll stick to regular Smarties.

Smarties Mini Eggs - New Orange Edition (WH Smiths) By @Cinabar

It is a well known phenomena (do-doo-do-do-do) amongst chocolate fans that orange Smarties taste of orange. All the other Smarties in a regular tube are just milk chocolate, well currently. There are whisperings that other Smarties in years gone by used to have some flavours, but the orange ones are the only ones I ever remember ever being different. Weirdly Smarties don’t really promote the fact the orange ones are orangey very much, you just discover it when you try them, and then they become everyone’s favourite. Unless you are weird and don’t like orange chocolate I suppose.

I was pleased to see these new Easter Smarties Mini Eggs chocolates are available in a just orange edition and have all the orangey flavour goodness you would expect. The Smarties Mini Eggs are small egg shaped chocolates, with bright orange shells. They are a bit tougher to bite on that regular Smarties, but this is only because of their size and the increase in the thickness of chocolate. The orange flavour delivers a lovely sweet citrus burst, that works well with the milk chocolate. I like the crunchy texture from the shell and found they are pleasure to munch on. I’ll be having another bag or so before Easter. Also I think the Orange Smarties flavouring phenomena (do do-do do) might be out of the bag, literally.

The Smarties Sandwich [By @Cinabar]

There has been an awful lot of press about the incident of the Smarties Sandwich that occurred earlier in the week. If you haven’t heard about it a very brief run down was that a school spotted that a parent had made a child a sandwich with Smarties inside it for their lunch. The story is covered by the Daily Mail here. The general consensus was horrified teachers/parents but the whole thing really got me thinking. Yes I have to admit to smiling when I saw the article, I know I shouldn’t, but it’s one pretty looking sandwich you have to admit! I find it hard to believe that people reading this haven’t at some point indulged in a sandwich made with Nutella / Jam / Crisps / Chips or some other inappropriate ingredients, although admittedly probably as an occasional treat. So we are all disgusted by the Smarties sandwich, but let’s think this through – is it because of the bright colours? Nestle Smarties have no actual artificial colours or flavourings in their choccies, so that can’t be the reason. Perhaps it’s the nutritional facts – so for reference a tube of Smarties has 178 calories and 6.8g of fat, please keep that in mind. Now let’s look at a far more common scenario. A child goes to school with a sandwich, with two slices of cheese and maybe even some pickle, nobody would bat an eye lid. I dare say that situation is far more widespread than the Smarties incident. Interestingly two slices of cheese actually amounts to 202 calories and over 15g of fat. Just saying. Scarily the Smarties sandwich has 24 less calories and 8.9g less fat than the cheese version. I am not trying to defend the Smarties sandwich, just trying to rationalise our reaction to it, and remember there are plenty of other choices which look okay and are far more common, but in reality aren’t great if you look at the stats. Anyway, I write a blog about that contains a lot of chocolate / crisps / bad-for-you food, so I felt it best to actually try out this emotive snack. I wasn’t sure about measures, but I did discover that the whole tube of Smarties covered the bread rather well. My local newsagent only had the limited edition pink Smarties, which are created to help fund raise for breast cancer care, so yet another reason why this sandwich isn’t all bad! To be honest though the sandwich wasn’t great when it came to the crunch. For a start the Smarties run everywhere, as you pick up the bread it is disappointing to see the contents slip out and you have to mourn the lost chocolate. The texture is a bit weird too, I felt the Smarties were a bit too hard for a sandwich, and didn’t quite feel crunchy like a crisp sarnie or satisfying like a chip one. Smarties are best left in the tube, but if I was to offer some advice to any wannabe testers, I think I’d suggest some Nutella to help them stick! Please read this responsibly and remember a Smarties sandwich should be for occasional snacking purposes only! Normal Foodstuff Finds service will resume shortly... ;-)

By Cinabar

Smarties Penguin (Sainsbury’s)

I just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, and hope you are enjoying the holidays! To celebrate the festive season I have found this rather Christmassy chocolate penguin.
He is a nestle penguin made of sweet milk chocolate and filled with Smarties. I do like the idea of having Smarties within the chocolate shell, it reminded me of how Easter eggs used to be, but perhaps it isn’t best to think about Easter just yet!
If you find this rather splendid Smarties Penguin in your stocking tomorrow, I’m sure it can’t help but make you smile.

Merry Christmas!!!

Banana Creamy Yogurt with Mini Smarties (Asda)

This is a little bit like the Mini Eggs dessert I told you about last month, i.e. there is a section of yoghurt and a container with the chocolate that you tip in to complete the dessert.
This particular variety though doesn’t have a liquid chocolate section, it has a pot of banana yoghurt with mini Smarties to tip in. The Smarties compartment is only about two thirds full which seems like a disappointing portion, but once they are tipped in it seems an acceptable amount.
The yoghurt has a creamy banana flavour and is silky smooth without any bits. Once the Smarties are in, they bleed there coloured shells into the white yoghurt and leave a colour trail. As the Smarties are all natural the colour trails are at least not artificial. The dessert itself is very sweet as it combines rich banana and chocolate, but my sweet tooth enjoyed it very much. For those of you who aren’t into banana flavoured products, it is also available with vanilla or strawberry yoghurt. I will update you when I have tried those too!