New After Eight Mousse (Waitrose) [By @Cinabar]

After eights are normally purchased as a bit of a Christmas tradition here at Foodstuff Finds. They are nice and minty and have a good refreshing flavour, they are remarkably moreish and there is nothing more disappointing than looking through the box to find it is just filled with empty wrapper sleeves other people have left!
Anyway the brand has diversified and released these new desserts based of the famous chocolates and I couldn’t wait to given them a try. Oddly enough the chocolate layers in them isn’t a sauce but a solid. It breaks easily, but it did remind me of Viennetta in that respect. The picture on the front of the packaging shows neat balanced layers of dark chocolate, in reality it was a bit more haphazard and uneven than that. The mousse is minty flavoured, but it is far too mild. It doesn’t have a kick of peppermint just a slight refreshing hint and nice bit of sweetness. Now the chocolate sounded like a nice idea, but in reality it started to bug me. All the chocolate layers were stuck to the sides of the pot, making it actually very difficult to get all the contents out. I found heavy scraping essential, and a bit disappointing. The chocolate too didn’t have much flavour, it looked dark but didn’t deliver a strong cocoa hit, just a mild chocolate flavour.
There is nothing offensive about the After Eight Mousses, but in terms of delivery there just isn’t anything magical there either. They are ok, but I’d rather have a box of After Eights if truth be told!

By Cinabar

Win: Colman's Limited Edition Vintage Jars

Colman’s have just released three limited edition vintage jars to celebrate their 200th anniversary.

The new jars have been inspired by a stunning collection of vintage adverts used by Colman’s throughout the past two centuries and highlight the proud history and rich heritage of the brand.

They look fabulous, and they have offered up a Foodstuff Finds readers competition in which you could pick up a set!

In order to enter you need to follow this blog via Email, Twitter, Pinterest or Facebook (all the links are on menu on the right).

Then send an email to admin@foodstufffinds.co.uk with COMP in the subject line, AND let me know how you follow us (i.e. your name on Facebook, your email address that subscribes or your @name on twitter or you name on Pinterest).

Competition closes 20th July 2014

Terms/Conditions
• Four winners will be chosen at random
• UK residents only
• Competition closes 8pm on 20th July 2014.
• If we can’t get in touch with each winner in a reasonable amount of time to obtain an address another winner will be selected.
• If you have any questions about this competition, please send me an email or leave a comment below.

Good Luck Everyone!

Small World Stage, Glastonbury - smoothie review [by @NLi10]

One of my favourite places at the Glastonbury festival is the Small World stage - located in the green futures area. This section is dedicated to all kinds of sustainable living ideas and suits my techno-hippy ideals of using the best information available to help make a difference.

The Small World stage is one of many performance areas/ cafés there and is solar powered and sells mugs of tea. 

My happiness at finding myself back here is not changed by the rain at all - in fact I think I only discovered it originally as I was seeking shelter many festivals ago (in my case probably from the sun).

This time I'd made a special effort to get up early after a late shift to come see Mal Webb's set - and then two bands later I got to see him as part of Formidable Vegetable Sound System whom I'd never heard of but thoroughly enjoyed too (even got the CD).

Here we see Mal sound checking while I enjoy a Belvoir lemonade. This in itself is not that exciting - had a lot of these - although apparently they only had one of these and it had been sitting around for so long by itself they had forgotten what it cost.

I also tried their home made lemon slice (which I think had poppy seeds too) on multiple occasions as it made a very nice lunch.  Almost like a lemon blondie in its consistancy it was very filling and sharp in flavour.

Next up was this mug of strange slop. What is it? It's a vegan smoothie!

Made from hemp milk (which I had no idea existed) and bananas with cacao powder and dates it was certainly an interesting prospect.  Served in a real mug (which after sleeping on the floor and living in a field for almost a week is strangely luxurious prospect) and with live music it's a strange sensation.  The flavour is mostly banana but with the other flavours providing interesting combinations.  The texture is thick and there is enough variety that the whole mug was a pleasure.

Unfortunately I didn't get to try the second flavour, Glastonbury conspires against organisation such as that. Guess that gives me something to do next time. :)

Innis & Gunn Canadian Cherrywood Finish (Aldi) [By @SpectreUK]

I don't think I've ever been bought a beer by someone I've never met before. I've been sent a few beverages in the past to review, and I'm always grateful and honoured that a company would want a simple blogger such as myself to write about their products (that was an advert by the way), but I've never been bought a beer by someone I've never met if you see what I mean? Here I've been bought two beers. That in itself puzzled me. Are beers bought by people you haven't met like buses and two come along at the same time? If that is the case I may try an experiment in a couple of months time, say around the end of October. I could take a jaunt one specific night to the nearest public house whilst wearing a white sheet with a couple of holes for my eyes and stand at the bar with both hands outstretched whilst making a light pining noise or perhaps saying "Trick or treat!" I'll let you know how I get on. Anyway, I digress... Thank you to Cinabar's work friend for buying me these two rather smartly presented bottles of the Seasonal Edition of Innis & Gunn Canadian Cherrywood Finish.

I decided to drink them both whilst watching the women's tennis final match at Wimbledon on the box, or rather slaughter-match between Bouchard or "Skippy", as she did a little skip before each serve, and the scary tough Kvitova. The match started fairly well although poor Skippy probably should have spent the day stuck down a well as she was out gunned by Kvitova.

The beer had spent some time sat in the fridge and the first bottle poured rather excitedly into my beer glass with bubbles and froth determined to escape. The beer had a deep copper colour and strong sweet malty fruity smell to it. On first taste this lively beer had a complex full bodied sweet malty fruitiness that complemented its following medium hoppy bitterness. It had an added touch of sweetness from the maple syrup which stuck with its Canadian theme, and also had clear woody undertones from the Canadian Black Cherrywood and oak aged finish. Right on the end of the palate there was the added liqueur kick from the bourbon, which had been infused into the cherrywood.

This was indeed another fine quality Scottish beer from one of my favourite brewers, who have produced a beer that obviously had taken a great deal of care, thought and innovation. Optic, Crystal, and Aromatic Barley Malts were used, as well as Roasted Barley and Wheat. These had a longer boiling time in the copper to further caramelise the malt flavours. Their malty sweetness was balanced with the Goldings and Super Styrian hops used which helped to produce the beer's soft earthy bitterness. The brewer recommended trying this beer with figs and goats cheese, which sounded great to me. I'd certainly recommend you try this beer with a smoky barbecue if the weather holds up. Let's hope it becomes another regular on the shelf seasonal offering such as Innis & Gunn's Winter warmer Rum Cask.

By Spectre

Kit Kat Chunky Orange (Sainsburys) [By @Cinabar]

I kept seeing adverts for this bar linking it to the football with a line about half-time oranges,so I though I better find myself one to actually try. It's not the most impressive link to the world cup, and to be fair the branding of the bar itself doesn’t go down this route so perhaps I shouldn’t judge it on that.
When I got the bar home though it did feel awfully familiar. Orange Kit Kat does sound like it has been done before, and low and behold a quick check and it has, back in 2012. It was one of the flavours that came out in the competition to try and find a new flavour for the UK, and it didn’t win then. You would have through that it would have gone down better with the British public, but it lost out to Peanut Butter. Kit Kat obviously know best and re-released it anyway for us to re-try.
I can’t argue that I don’t like the bar, I do like orange and chocolate together. It has a good balance of sweetness and zesty orange flavour, which works nicely with the milk chocolate. Part of me thinks it is a good new bar for the UK as it already feels like it is standard and has been around for ages. In terms of product development though it doesn’t score very highly.
Way back when the Kit Kat Chunky bars were fairly new out here, and before I started blogging even, I remember the flavours used to be more exciting. For example I distinctly remember there being a fab ‘Editions’ version with Mango and passionfruit that was just out of this world. Anyone else remember it? Can’t we have more of that again, something a bit different and a bit special?

By Cinabar