Weight Watchers Vanilla & Chocolate Ice cream Waves (Asda) [By @Cinabar]

I couldn’t help but think that this dessert reminded me of Viennetta ice cream. It’s not a bad thing, I have a retro love of Viennetta but I also get calorie guilt straight after eating some! I know it’s wrong but I always have more than the recommended serving, their slices always look SO small!
Weight Watchers have created a lower fat ice cream cake that looks lovely but it far lower in calories than you might expect. Inside the box there are two desserts, which I assume are one per person. I say this because I had a whole one to myself, as they aren’t that big, the photo shows them on small side plates – not dinner plates! ;-)


The ice cream cake is very pretty with white vanilla ice cream waved through it and a chocolate coating. Sadly there seems to be only two places with layers of chocolate, the very top and another inside towards the bottom, so there isn’t actually that much to crunch through, but there is enough for it to add flavour and look pretty.
The ice cream is remarkably light and fluffy in texture, making it a pleasure to eat, and still has a good creamy taste too and nice hint of vanilla. I guess the waves within the dessert give it that extra bit of fluffiness and help keep it aerated. This makes it feel indulgent, and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the dessert. I was impressed by the fact that each serving has only 111 calories, and these are something I will be keeping in the freezer as a lighter but yummy alternative to a naughtier pudding.

By Cinabar

Jaxx [Milk Chocolate, Double Chocolate & Orange Chocolate Crunches] [By @Cinabar]

Jaxx is a new brand of chocolate in the UK, and their Crunches chocolates are aimed at the tween/teen market. They consist of pebbles of biscuit coated in chocolate and are packaged in these brightly coloured bags. They are launching in three flavours – and I was lucky enough to be able to try all three. Despite being a tad older than a teenager, I was still rather looking forward to getting stuck in.



Milk Chocolate Crunches (Blue Bag)
This particular variety is the closest Jaxx comes to plain, and thankfully that still consists of plenty of chocolate in the mix. The biscuit is firm and crunchy when you first bite in, but soon melts in the mouth in a very pleasant fashion. The chocolate is sweet and creamy and the baked biscuit flavour makes a lovely contrast. I found these very easy to munch on, and really enjoyed the bag.


Double Chocolate Crunches (Red Bag)
These chocolates were very similar to the previous variety, but the biscuit within was also cocoa flavoured and this time a dark brown in colour. They were rich and tasty and provide a good crunch, but I found myself preferring the contrast in flavours in the previous bag.



Orange Chocolate Crunches (Orange Bag)
These are currently the only fruit flavour Crunches available, and they worked so well that I really hope Jaxx bring out some more innovative flavours. The biscuit has a lovely crunch, loads of chocolate taste and a sweet juicy hit of orange. They tasted fresh and moreish, and the citrus hit was absolutely perfect for summer. These were my favourite by far, and that’s remembering I had enjoyed the others too.

To be honest I think these chocolates much surpass their target audience, as I would be happy to pick these up for an afternoon snack in the office. The orange ones in particular were gorgeous and are definitely something I would want to try again.
The only negative point I have about these chocs is that the bags were awkward to open, tore and were not re-sealable. This meant that I simply had to eat all the contents once opened, but perhaps every cloud has a silver lining. ;-)

By Cinabar

Tyrrells: English Summer Barbecue [Crisps] (Waitrose)

I’m not sure what magic Tyrells have performed but on this packet but it states that their crisps help ‘coax out the sun’ and it seems to have worked! It’s been lovely weather here in the West Midlands for the series of bank holidays we’ve been having, and has very much put me in the barbecue mood.
This is Tyrrells Summer Special Edition of crisps, and they too are thinking about that great seasonal cooking treat. Being an omnivore, the idea of barbecue flavour crisps filled me with the thoughts of bacon, sausage and various other char-grilled goodies. Curiously though the crisp packet didn’t seem to mention any specific meats or foods and seemed to be a generic ‘barbecue’ flavour.
I’d like to start with the negatives about these crisps; they didn’t have a taste that I felt particularly represented the barbecue flavour. I suspected that they wouldn’t be very meaty, and this was true. There also wasn’t a char-grilled flavour, or smokiness, or even anything like a barbecue sauce.
Having said that I have to say I still really liked these crisps. The potato base was nice, thick and flavoursome. The have a firm crunch, and are perfect for a large sharing bowl. Despite not representing ‘barbecue’ to me, what they did have was a rich sweet paprika taste, and an aftertaste of chilli providing a gentle kick. The spicy flavours made them tasty and moreish and I will happily buy them again. I just think they are more appropriate to take to a barbecue rather than to represent the barbecue taste.

By Cinabar

Twix Miniatures & Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocos [New UK Chocolate] [By @Cinabar]

As product development goes, these two items are a bit of sure thing. They are not made using a particularly risky Limited Edition recipe, but keep to a basic formula, repackaged and reshaped in a slightly different way. Having said that I really like both Dairy Milk and Twix, so shouldn’t really complain.




Twix Miniatures
When I wrote about KitKat Pop Chocs, somebody at work said to me that they really ought to make a Twix version. Clearly Mars where listening, as this have since appeared on the supermarket shelves.
The bag consists of miniature Twix bars, each individually wrapped and in a bag ideal for sharing. The ratio of caramel to biscuit is consistent and it does seem to be a Twix shrunk down and shortened. The chocolate is sweet as you would expect, the caramel is soft and the biscuit adds that golden flavour. The combination really does work, and Twix fans will absolutely love these. As much as I liked them too, I can’t help but wish Twix would try out a more innovative formula in the UK, something like the Pods they launched in Australia.




Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocos
Cadbury’s Dairy Milk is already available in many different sizes in the UK market, from small thin bars right up to 5kg bars! This is quite different though as it makes the chunks a lot easier to share, or indeed have a few and put the rest away for later. Unwrapping the tube I found the contents to look much like solid Rolos, each with the Cadbury’s “C” neatly moulded in to the top of each piece. I don’t really want to start reviewing Dairy Milk, but I think it is enough to say that I really enjoy the flavour finding it sweet, creamy and indulgent.
I munched on these while watching a film, and found them easy to pass around and enjoy. Again these are not the most inventive new product in terms of taste, but are certainly a winner for Cadbury’s fans and it is nice the see the chocolate in a new format.

By Cinabar

Innocent Apple & Orange Juice (Ocado) [by @NLi10]

Hiding at the end of a cereal review I mentioned the Innocent orange juice and said that it was just orange juice and nothing more or less. This is accurate.

As Ocado (yes - expect pie reviews soon) had this on Special Offer I decided to get one of each just as something to drink and not particularly to review. With the orange this is still the case, it's just orange juice - doesn't taste like freshly squeezed on the premises in a Spanish cafe orange juice, but it's as good as you'd get at home.

The apple juice however is a little more special. I'm not sure what they do to carton Apple juice that makes it no-longer look like it's related to apples. The clear golden-brown liquid (drunk by the residents of the Queen Vic & Rovers Return and other TV pubs instead of beer) is nice and tastes of apples, but is usually highly concentrated and doesn't really get your mouth watering.

Just like cider can be bettered by finding nicer, higher class brands - apple juice varies in quality. This is surprising in its quality as it's really nice! It's not got a complicated flavour like all the Bensons Totally Fruity that I love, but it's a lot cheaper and easier to get hold of and equally nice in different ways. I drank this in two sittings and could happily have swapped the orange for a 2nd bottle. I have a tendency to grab an innocent smoothie from Tesco to sneak into the cinema instead of relying on their sugar water dispensing machines, but I think that this juice is a very good alternative.

For those times where you want lots of juice (or those films which don't require the special-effects enhancing qualities of caffeine) then this is a new go-to product for me.

By NLi10