Ben & Jerry's Core - Peanut Butter Ice Cream (Waitrose) [By @Cinabar]

Peanut butter is a funny thing. My taste buds tell me it should be served sweet, and that it goes well with chocolate. Here in the UK though peanut butter tends to be savoury, or served on its own spread on toast. There is a growing audience for peanut butter and the sweet toothed, with a Kit Kat being released, and more and more Reeses goodies on the shelves too, so I know I’m not alone. Since reading that NLi10 had tied out the Ben & Jerry’s peanut butter ice cream, I had been on the hunt for it to try out myself.
In theory, this sounds like it should be close to being my dream ice cream, it seems to be a good mix of flavours with a clever array of ingredients. When I took the lid of the ice cream and dug in, I could see that there were two tones of ice cream, one side vanilla and one side peanut butter, and the core, as they call it, was raspberry jam. This seems to have a bit more of the American influence as one of their famed sandwiches if PB&J, so popular it has its own abbreviation, peanut butter and jam! Wow! As I was scooping it into bowl, I soon spotted that the chocolate element hadn’t been forgotten, and there were chocolates filled with peanut butter scattered in the ice cream too.
I gave it a try, and found it was a total delight to the taste buds. There is so much going on here, but whatever combination of flavours the spoon picked up, it just worked. The vanilla ice cream was super creamy and indulgent. The peanut butter ice cream is rich and very nutty, the peanut flavour is distinct, and it almost has a salty edge to the taste. The jam core was well balanced, it was a strong raspberry taste, but it was sharp and zingy with a full on taste. I loved the chocolate peanut butter cups dotted throughout the ice cream too, they added that cocoa goodness, an element of fun to the texture, and delivered a purer shot of peanut butter. My only negative comment is I wished that there had been more of them in the ice cream, because they were a fab addition to it.
I think that this is the nicest Ben & Jerry’s ice cream combination I have tried, and to be fair I’ve never had a bad one! I loved the addition of the jam being the core, far more than I have like previous chocolate centres; it was very fresh and different and complemented the peanut butter perfectly. I think the American might just be on to something! This is my new favourite ice cream. :-)

By Cinabar

Taste the Difference Bistro: Blood Orange Creme Brulee (@sainsburys) [By @Cinabar]

Despite a sweet tooth, Spectre isn’t much of a fan of desserts. He is more likely not to want any than to have a fancy for something sweet for afters in a restaurant. He has an exception to this rule though, and that is the humble Creme Brulee, his pudding of puddings. When I discovered that Sainsbury’s new Taste The Difference Brulee had the added twist of Blood Orange I couldn’t decide if it would go down well with him, but I thought it was worth a try!
The Creme Brulees come in pottery ramekins, and have a sachet of sugar that your sprinkle on top and pop under the grill until they go golden.
Once out from the grill the desserts had a lovely topping that cracked open with a spoon, revealing the creamy custard like filling. The addition of the blood orange flavour worked remarkably well, it was fresh and zesty, with a sharp edge rather than adding any extra sweetness. The main flavour was still full of creamy caramel tones, and reminded me of melting toffees, and the orange didn’t distract from that it merely complemented it adding its clever marmalade flavour.
When I first saw these puddings I did think that they would be a nice Halloween treat, if you played on the ‘blood’ orange on a Halloween menu, so I was a little disappointed to discover that there was no blood red sauce within the pudding, or hint of any additional colour at all. The flavour of the blood orange is contained with the Creme Brulee itself.
The official Creme Brulee expert seemed to be enjoy his pudding a lot, and scraping the last bits out of the pottery container. I asked him what he thought and he agreed that the blood orange added a lovely zingy taste to it and it was a nice twist on a regular Creme Brulee. He also said it was one of the nicest shop bought Creme Brulee’s he’d had, and it would be something he definitely would have again. High praise indeed!

By Cinabar

Pejoy - Red Wine & Chocolate and Strawberry & Vanilla [by @NLi10]

After seeing the wonderful (but not for anyone who dislikes being offended) musical The Book Of Mormon we happened to be walking through London's Chinese shopping area looking for a restaurant and spotted a shop with far more Pocky variants than usual.  I picked up these two - from the sister range of inside-out Pocky Pejoy.

These are manufactured under the Glico license in China, presuably to be sold locally and appear to have been part of a special range.

The red wine and chocolate one is probably the most unusual bread stick plus that i've had in some time.  The smell is certainly authentic and while I'm sure there is no alcohol involved, if you much the whole stick at once you get a pleasurable flavour that is very similar to a wine.  I need to try these on some experts, but the people at work I ran them past did seem to enjoy them - as did the card players that evening.

The combo with the dark choc works well, wonder if this works with real wine too?

The only slightly more normal Strawberry's and Vanilla was up next.  Again I'd not seen this but I presumed it would be similar to the freeze-dried strawberry Pocky that I had a lot in Thailand.  Turns out it's a slightly different proposition and is a lot more like a milkshake and less like a strawberry.  I am fine with this however as these tasted great.

The card players definitely preferred the Strawberry Pejoy, where as at work the older generation preferred the wine.  I'm sure that most people would have a favourite but for the sheer novelty - and even though I don't drink wine - the sophisticated adult Pejoy was the superior experience for me.

Mr Trotter’s Great British Pork Crackling - Jalapeño Chilli [@Mr_Trotters] [By @SpectreUK]

These Mr Trotter’s Great British Pork Crackling Jalapeño Chilli flavour were “Triple cooked for a perfect crunch”, or so it stated on the front of the packet. I have always been a fan of pork crackling, but in recent years as my teeth haven’t felt as strong as they used to in my early years (I sound like an old man...), I’ve had to give up one of my favourite snacks in favour of visiting the dentist less, besides, they’re not so easy on the waist line either. Per 60g bag there were 397 calories with 31.9g of fat. The ingredients were; pork rind, salt, wheat flour, rusk, hydrolysed vegetable protein, sugar, dextrose, citric acid, yeast extract, and spice extract. This product contained wheat gluten and soya. Even though Mr Trotter’s Great British Pork Crackling is produced in Walsall, in the West Midlands, the packet states that Mr Trotter is quite the adventurer and had the idea of seasoning his pork crackling with the medium hot chilli jalapeño on his travels in Mexico. I opened the bag and could smell pork crackling and jalapeño. The triple cooking of the pork crackling had worked very well indeed. The pork crackling had a perfect crunch to them; every single piece was spot on, no hard parts to make me worry about a trip to the dentist as they just didn’t hurt my teeth at all. There was a verdantly sharp bite from the jalapeño seasoning; it was very hot, having a lovely chilli taste and lovely pork taste from the crackling. Both flavours went together very well, combining a sweet spicy and salty flavour. After a few pieces of pork crackling there was fire in my mouth. They made my nose run a little too, especially the bits at the bottom of the bag that I just had to mop up with my fingers, they tasted so good and so hot! This Mr Trotter’s Great British Pork Crackling Jalapeño Chilli flavour is definitely hot stuff. I would certainly have them again, but I may need some water or more likely beer with them. It’s one of the hottest snacks I’ve ever eaten, particularly the last mouthfuls where all the excess spice had accumulated. A definite buy for any hot snack lovers out there, but be warned, as these pork cracklings have their own serious bite! ;-)

By Spectre

[New] Wonka – Millionaires Shortbread (Local Newsagent) [By @Cinabar]

Those of us who hang out in the import food shops will be well aware of the prevalence of Wonka sweets and chocolates in America. I know that we at Foodstuff Finds have already covered quite a few of their goodies too, but this bar is a little different. This is a UK launch for the brand, with which they hope to bring a bit of the Wonka magic direct to UK shores.
The problem with promising something different is that at the minute Cadbury are working through their Marvellous Creation range, which are all seriously crazy combinations – Cola, Pretzel and Honeycomb chocolate anyone? By comparison Millionaires Shortbread doesn’t sound all that different at all, it is after all biscuit, caramel and chocolate. It seems strangely safe.
The bar has also came with a fair amount of bad press, mainly due to its calorie content. To be fair this particular size of bar has 200 calories which really isn’t out of the ordinary. For comparison sake the new Maltesers Teasers is 186 and the new Quality Street My Green Bar has 196 calories, and are both of a similar size. Kit Kat Chunky’s are around the 250 calorie mark.
Putting the calorie count aside, as any true chocoholic would, I unwrapped the bar. I found four neat squares of chocolate, all with the trademark ‘W’ adorned on them. I broke a piece off and was a little bit disappointed that I couldn’t see any oozing caramel. Still I bit in and gave it a try. No matter how much I looked at the piece of chocolate I couldn’t see gooey caramel, just a pale solid, but in texture it was all there which was rather nice. The biscuit layer was crunchy and buttery and tasted very rich, the golden caramel flavour on top just turned it into such a lush treat. Yes it was sweet, but the cocoa flavour broke it up, and every piece was just spot on.
It had a nice mix of textures; sweet, buttery, caramel and chocolate tastes intertwined and the bar thoroughly impressed me. It was a fab choccy treat, and I can’t wait to try the other new varieties from Wonka.

By Cinabar