Can I Have My Ball Back Please? Cadbury's Spots Vs Stripes - Catch! [By @NLi10]

http://www.spotsvstripes.com/catch/

Snack marketing doesn't get much better than this! Cadbury's, sponsors of the London 2012 Olympics are using their lovely Spots Vs Stripes bar to launch a series of activities and contests. This one is called 'Catch' and involves 100 large purple balls with GPS receivers being passed around the country. I happened to be lucky enough to work with one of the Twitterati that were given one to play with - @CaptainKindling - and so at the end of the working day I decided to have a look.


It's a rather big thing and clearly numbered up so that you know which one it is, and it's all done on GPS so that Cadbury's can follow you and see what you get up to. Essentially there are two games - furthest travelled and most people photographed with it. Tempting as it was to keep this unique item to myself I decided reluctantly to give it back. I'm the one in the stripy jumper, which should have given me the right to take this home. This counts as plus one to its photo count and earns a free sports kit for the Cadbury charity drive - check the website for more info.

http://www.groundwork.org.uk

I've always said that Cadbury's should sponsor a F1 team - metallic purple would be the perfect car livery and it may attract more female people to the sport, but the world’s largest game of catch has to be a pretty close 2nd. What will they think of next!

Good Luck Stripes 75!!

By NLi10

Marmite Truffles (Paul A Young)

It is no secret that I was both desperate to try Marmite chocolate and then hugely disappointed with the official bar. Everybody who had tried it told me that Paul A Young's version was ‘the’ Marmite chocolate to try. Sadly as the chocolate isn’t sold online, and is only available in the London shops, it has taken a while for me to locate. You wouldn’t believe how excited I am about trying this chocolate though.


The truffles are packed in a simple metallic box, decorated with purple ribbon. Inside the box each chocolate is given its own purple paper case to sit in, and the pretty chocolate shines temptingly within.
These truffles have a dark chocolate casing, with a smart glittery gold sheen on their surface. The aroma encapsulates rich dark tones of cocoa, but no Marmite on initial inspection. As I bit into the chocolate, there was a rich yeasty Marmite flavour that appeared, this developed as I chewed but was ingeniously taken over by the sumptuous tones of cocoa that blended the two tastes together perfectly.
The chocolate shell cracks easily when bitten despite having a decent thickness. The ganache like filling is soft and silky with a lovely smooth texture. The chocolate used is full of flavour, clearly of an excellent quality.
These truffles are very clever, they play with the Marmite flavour and allow it to develop and then just before it overpowers they carefully allow the cocoa to come back on board. It shouldn’t work, but there is no questioned that it does. It has been a long time since I last tried a chocolate that wowed me this much, the flavours work in union and make an amazing taste sensation. If you get the opportunity I can’t emphasise just how much you should try these, I just wish they were sold online.

Galaxy Mistletoe Kisses Cake Bars (Sainsbury’s)

As it is that time of year once again, the Galaxy Mistletoe Kisses chocolate bar has re-appeared on the shelves. As it hasn’t changed significantly over the last couple of Christmases I haven’t felt obliged to write about it again, but it is nice to let you all know about it. Also I’m please to say I have found a ‘new’ product, these lovely Mistletoe tie-in cake bars!
These individually wrapped cakes are made by McVities, but do have that creamy smooth Galaxy chocolate flavour in their coating. There is a chocolate sponge layer, and on top of that sits the chocolate cream mousse and caramel, as per the regular chocolate bar. Although the cake bars obviously can’t come with three triangular chunks, each cake is decorated with a chocolaty swirl to make it look pretty.
The base sponge is chocolaty and is rather light and fluffy, but you would expect nothing else from a McVities cake bar! The mousse layer feel likes a soft cool fondant and delivers a creamy chocolate taste. The caramel is quite sweet and rich, but I would prefer a more gooey appearance. It is the lovely chocolate coating that takes centre stage, adding that Galaxy magic to these bars.
If you are looking for a nice Christmas themed cake bar treat I don’t think you can go wrong with these sweet tasting Mistletoe bars.

19 Gales Fresh Hand Made Blueberry & Apple Turnover {by @NLi10} (19 Gales Farm Shop - Birmingham University Campus)

For a change, and due to the Indie Uprising that is taking place on Xbox Live in December I'm reviewing things from my local Farm Shop. While you probably don't live within reach of this particular one it's well worth you having a look locally to find your own source of home cooked, locally grown snacks!

For pudding on my last trip over to 19 Gales Farm Shop I picked up a couple of these blueberry and apple turnovers. As the pork pie was so filling I decided to take them home instead, but they got a bit flattened on the way. They still tasted great and although I'm not a fan of the blueberry (raspberries every time for me) the mix of flavours was great. If these were home made for home consumption then I think I'd have doubled the fruit inside them and then had them as a massive pudding with ice-cream, but as a commercially viable product for 75p each these were fab. Also they had none of the hard sugar coating on the top which seems to blight most commercial turnovers to compensate for the lack of flavour inside - these actually tasted of fruit and were naturally sweet.

I urge you to go out and seek local independent places that do fresh baking, while the chains are OK most of it is shipped to them readymade and then just heated to the finish on the premises. Truly fresh baking is great, and if you are too lazy to do it at home like I am then Farm Shops are a great alternative.

And don't forget - the big online global farm shop that is the Xbox 360 Indie Games section (it's tucked away near the back under the download games, hiding after the demos) has a whole couple of weeks of new games ranging from a tiny 65p to an epic £3.20 (80 to 400 points in M$). There is even a list at http://www.indiegames-uprising.com/ so you can spot the featured gems more easily. Epic Dungeon is my favourite so far, but I haven't tried them all yet!

by @NLi10

Wassail Ale [By Spectre] (English Heritage Gift Shop)

For ease of travel by car over the last year or so we’ve been holidaying in North Wales. Cinabar and I usually go away for a week somewhere in April, then to Alton Towers and London (to see a show) for a week away on my Birthday in July, and then three days in November. For the three days this year we were going to be exploring Seahouses in Northumberland, as well as Alnwick Castle and Bamburgh Castle, and generally have a poke around the north coast. Cinabar was desperate to stay in a big spooky castle whilst we were there, so she booked Lumley Castle for two nights. We then found out that Alnwick and Bamburgh Castles are both shut in November. Cinabar found a ship in Hartlepool called the Trincomalee that had fought in Trafalgar and had recently been refurbished from a Naval training ship to the way it looked when it sailed the seven seas ready for battle in 1817 (“Ha, ha… me Hearties! Shiver me timbers! Yo ho ho and a bottle of...” Okay, okay… I’ll stop). After lunch on the way and getting lost a couple of times, we arrived at the ship’s museum at 3pm. We saw this Wassail ale in the shop, but didn’t manage to buy it before the place closed. We did have a great time wondering around the beautifully refurbished ship though. We also had a good wonder around the docks and saw the rather rough looking North Sea from the harbour walls as the sun went down.

We then drove to Cinabar’s spooky sounding Lumley Castle. We heard several ghost stories from the staff that night, including a Cavalier who sits amongst the guests in the lounge area, and how a staff member had been scared half to death in one bedroom by a cold wind and a figure sitting on the end of the bed waking her up in the night. After a tasty, but expensive meal we had a good wonder around the haunted castle. Every picture, ancient bust and statue seems to stare at you with soulless eyes that follow you where ever you are in the room. Before bed we looked at the map and decided to explore Hadrian’s Wall the next day.


Over the next two days we visited three Roman forts; Chester Fort, Vindolanda, and Housesteads, which were all fascinating to wonder around. Chester Fort had a well preserved Roman Bath House, whilst Housesteads had a very well preserved latrine (see above!) and we had a race jumping across the stones of the pillared floor in the Grain Store. We saw this Wassail ale again at Chester Fort and snapped it up straight away this time. Made by Ballards Brewery for the English Heritage, this 6% volume beer sports itself as a “full bodied fruity beer with an underlying hoppiness.” It says on the label that it’s brewed with the finest malts and barley. On opening I noticed the strong barley smell straight away. The barley smell transcends to the taste giving this beer a sturdy barley flavour with a wheaty musky taste to it. The quality of the beer certainly doesn’t disappoint the taste buds. This is a good beer to drink late at night in a spooky castle to warm your shaking bones or failing that crack open a few whilst watching a good epic movie.

“I’m Spartacus!”

“No, I’m Spar…..!!”

By Spectre