Peanut Butter Creme Oreo (USA) [By @Cinabar]

The UK does have some excellent chocolate varieties available but there are two things notably missing in the UK market, chocolate & peanut butter and chocolate & coffee. Although we have seen examples of both in the shops upon occasion, neither seems to have caught on and most bars seem to be discontinued. As examples of bars I miss are Lindt Coffee Intense and Kit Kat Peanut Butter both have disappeared from our shelves leaving gaping holes in the market.
America seems to have different taste buds and chocolate & peanut butter is far more popular there. Luckily for me I have a contact, and the wonderful Jess from Foodette Reviews feeds my choc & peanut butter craving. This winter Jess sent a Christmas parcel, and amongst the Reese’s Christmas trees and other goodies sat this box of Peanut Butter Oreos. Oh my word. I ripped into the wrapper to sample the treasures within. The biscuits have the usual super dark (but sweet) rich cocoa flavour that I like so much, and as I bit in the biscuit broke releasing the soft peanut butter. The salty nutty taste spilled onto my taste buds and combined with the chocolate biscuit making the most amazing flavour concoction. Chocolate and peanut butter were made for each other! I loved the way the taste varied with every mouthful, sometimes salty, sometimes nutty and sometimes sweet, it is a clever mix and an amazing taste experience. I tried not to eat too many, but found myself reaching for one after another trying to savour each one and not scoff!
Peanut Butter Oreos are just about my favourite biscuit ever, I can’t believe they aren’t available in the UK. I also find it quite bizarre that import shops don’t stock these, but the import shops have always got it wrong with Oreos. They tend to sell regular Oreos or chocolate Oreos the only two flavours ALREADY available in any UK supermarket, what’s that about? I’m sure these readily available Oreos don’t sell too well at the import shops making them think that it isn’t worth stocking imported Oreos at all, and thus missing out all the other varieties… including these yummy peanut butter ones! I have seen mint, fudge, strawberry and a multitude of other flavours on American sites, but not in the UK.
After my binge I carefully packed the remaining Oreos into an air tight Tupperware box, so that I could keep them fresh and ration myself with the remaining elixir of biscuits. I can’t emphasise enough how much I hope 2012 is the year that the UK comes to its senses and sees peanut butter becoming the new caramel!

By Cinabar

Pickled Cucumber in Soy Sauce (Day In supermarket) [By @SpectreUK]

I’m always looking for new snacks of the pickled variety to add to the ever increasing pile on my Sunday lunch plate. I like soy sauce and I like cucumber. I saw this jar in a Chinese supermarket that I like to visit now and then to look for foodstuffs. Now I’ve had Makok pickled, but never my cucumber! The idea of pickling a cucumber first and then leaving it to soak up the good honest taste of soy sauce sounded like genius to me. Produced by the AGV Products Corporation in Taiwan, this cute jar was begging to be opened and its contents added to my already full plate the following Sunday, which was piled high with salami filled salad sandwiches, Barry Norman’s spicy pickled onions, pickled walnuts, and a pickled egg, plus a selection of crisps. Trust me, once I’ve eaten all those pickles and with my legendary escaping wind problem, you wouldn’t want to sit next to me for the rest of the afternoon.

There was a strong smell of soy sauce on opening the jar. I didn’t realize how much a cucumber could shrivel up once pickled! The finely cut pieces were quite small and crunchy, and had a luscious juicy taste of soy sauce. Feeling unusually generous, I shared a few out on Cinabar’s and her Mom’s plates. We all agreed that these pickled cucumbers in soy sauce were an excellent tasty treat and that we should always have a jar in the house. I don’t think the little jar will last long, so it’ll probably be another trip to the Chinese supermarket for me… ;-)

By Spectre

Tassimo – Twinings Chai Latte [@tassimo] [By @Cinabar]

I don’t intend to review every tea, coffee and hot chocolate available for the Tassimo machine, but it is a new toy in our house and so has got my interest up. Like the Milka hot chocolate, this drink was also too exciting to pass up!
One of my favourite drinks is spiced tea, and I thought I’d test out how the new Tassimo machine does things, it is actually the first tea I’ve tried in it. I popped the discs in and waited for my drink to arrive. The Tassimo uses a milk disc to mix up this tea, which may seem a bit unusual but is actually the more traditional method with spiced teas in India.
As you can see from the picture, the tea looked very pretty once it was made, with plenty of milk but a good warmth in the colour and a clever two-layer effect. The drink smelt aromatic with a lovely hint of cinnamon and spices, bringing a little slice of the exotic to the Foodstuff Finds kitchen.
The flavour was impressive, although there was plenty of spice, and it was fine for my taste buds, Spectre would have brewed his a bit longer had there been the option. He is the kind of guy who will leave tea bag in so long that you think that he was making tar not tea and the teaspoon can practically free stand in the middle!
I felt that the spices and the creamy milk made more of a soothing drink, with the cloves and star anise tickling the taste buds with the playful cinnamon. It’s a perfect comforting drink for a cold winter evening, with its warming fragrant spices and creamy taste.
Sweetness was something I thought might be an issue, I have one teaspoon’s worth in my cuppa, but Spectre thinks this is sacrilege and doesn’t touch the stuff. The Chai Latte seemed to be okay for both of us, without any addition of sugar from me which leads me to believe there is a tiny bit of sugar already in the brew, but only a very small amount. This is another product I will be buying again, as it is so different from the other drinks on offer for the machine. It is also the only one Spectre has tried as he is a little adverse to coffee and I haven’t yet tempted him with barista skills (which admittedly do consist of just pressing a button).
If you don’t have a Tassimo machine but like the idea of drinking Chai, I should point out that you can buy Twinings Chai tea bags from most big supermarkets. If you are tempted to buy a Tassimo machine, there are some great offer on Idealo at the minute.

By Cinabar

Hand Cooked Hoisin Duck Crisps (Tesco Finest) [By @Cinabar]

The thing about writing a blog about snacks is that when you are faced with a totally bizarre sounding flavour of crisps, you realise it’s not the first time you’ve tried the variety. In January 2009 Walkers brought out Crispy Duck and Hoisin Sauce crisps which was part of a competition where customers could suggest new varieties. The Walkers Duck crisps didn’t win their competition, but they were some fine tasting crisps with plenty of Hoisin flavour but also a fair amount of onion.
When I opened the pack I could smell rich tones, like those you might find when entering a Chinese restaurant. The crisps had an aromatic flavour, sweet, but with multiple spices, such as star anise shining through. The after taste was a decent hint of soya sauce for that shot of authentic flavour, and a hint of duck to finish the taste. Although onion was listed on the ingredients, the flavour was a background one, and not dominant like the old Walkers flavour.
I was impressed that these new crisps managed to recreate the complex taste so well, it was one of those rare occasions where you would be able to guess the variety from a blind taste test. It is nice to see something a bit different on the market, and although it has been done once before there aren’t any other crisps currently out with this flavour. More than that these were very tasty crisps and they were surprisingly moreish too, definitely worth a try.

By Cinabar

Festive Leftovers (Various Sources) [by @NLi10]

It's that time of year again, the time of year that comes after the other two times of year we've just had. This one is the one where you have lots of odds and ends of food left around. Often these are presents or things you took to parties that didn't get finished or just things you sampled while with friends. I took pictures of some of the more unusual ones that I tried and have collated them below.



Chip 'n' Ketchup Pringles

These were brought into work to share and with good reason - they taste a bit wrong. I'm not sure whether it's the brain misinterpreting the artificial flavours or just that Heinz ketchup taste is so pervasive but these were an odd mix. Essentially they are trying to taste like a fried chip with vinegar and ketchup and end up tasting like sweet, sulphurous crisps. Not sure why these haven't caught on!

Bahlsen Zum Fest

Now this is more like it! I'm not sure whether these were bought for Christmas Day or were a present but they appeared at Ms. NLi10's parent’s house on Christmas morning. Being a polite soul I only had a couple but all were of the usual high Bahlsen quality and actually tasted like Germanic festive treats you might purchase at a Christmas market.


Presentation wise they were also well done so these are easily giftable. I may check for these in Aldi/Lidl as that's the kind of place that excels in Euro snacks. A definite hit.


Lir - Fabulous Chocolate Florentines

We came (joint) second place in the Trust quiz and our prize was chosen to be these. We universally expected them to have a crisp base but essentially these are HUGE (5cm diameter) chocolate buttons with adult style toppings.


These included coffee, raspberry meringue, nuts and a dark fruits of forest one. As they are just choc you can see the very bottom light brown one has melted in the box! The choc was of a high quality but it was the smells that they produced and the toppings that raised these above the masses. A deluxe prize if there ever was one.


Border Biscuits Collection

These were a gift to our office by one of our beloved consultants. The tin and its contents are very well presented but a lot of the biscuits were broken due to their crumbly nature. This didn't impact on the taste and the only reason some of these survive is that there was so much else to try. I think the fruit in these was a little hard at times, but this wasn't a problem. Rare to see fruit in a chocolate biscuit work as a flavour balance too, which was a nice surprise.

And that’s it! Hope you enjoy clearing up all the last biscuits in the barrel as much as I did - Happy New Year!!

By NLi10