Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Caramel Almond on a stick (@Nli10)

It's officially summer! Lets buy cold things on sticks, preferably luxury ones. The brand leader in this has recently always been Magnum, after the Cornettos got smaller and less exciting.  Now there are a few more contenders to the throne.

Here we see the playful curves of a Haagen Dazs version of the Magnum almond, and the Magnum caramel all rolled into one.  If the Magnum Infinity hadn't looked like this then this would be a cool move so that people in the street know what you are eating.  I do put most of Magnum's success down to making sure that others know what you just bought from the ice-cream man.  Pink and shiny ftw.

That said, Haagen Dazs do make some pretty good plain ice-cream and so as you'd expect all the bites that have no choc caramel or almond in are actually creamy and great.

At the top the caramel is not really in force, but as you eat down the swirls intensify changing the flavour as it goes - which is really smart.  The almonds are decently large without making the bites too awkwardly hard, and the caramel is surprisingly gentle but with a lovely deeply sweet flavour.  

So it's not that innovative and different I guess but as the caramel and almonds taste very real and not artificial the whole thing is quite a nice luxury ice-cream to hide away with.  A top quality snack indeed.

Brewdog Jack Hammer Beer (Sainsbury’s) By @SpectreUK

Brewdog in Scotland produced this Jack Hammer beer. I do like the odd Brewdog beer now and then. They are always big on flavour and not for the faint hearted. Jack Hammer certainly didn't sound timid to me.  It's described as "Ruthless India Pale Ale" and at 7.2% volume I can well see why.

On cracking open the 330ml can I could smell a herbal hoppy ale with pale malt in the background. On first taste of this golden yet slightly murky pale ale, there was the sheer bitter bite of flavoursome herbal hops. This hoppy bitterness bashes about the tastebuds for a good while, before moving into pale malt and a slight bitter kick up the jacksie on its lipsmacking way into the aftertaste. This is definitely a very tasty craft ale indeed. One to be enjoyed on its own, I think, without washing down any food, although if pushed a spicy Thai or Chinese meal might go down well with it. Try it, I bet you won't be disappointed!

Dairy Milk Big Taste Peanut Caramel Crisp (Morrisons) By @Cinabar

I’ve seen a few of these bigger bars from Dairy Milk, but when I spotted this peanut edition, I couldn’t wait to dig in. I just love nuts and chocolate, and the size of the bar makes if gift worthy too, although this was a gift to myself! :-D
I opened up the wrapper, which is resealable for portion control. The bar is huge, even sharing (yes I did actually share) we ate this over several nights. The chocolate pieces are bigger too, and each one is topped with a chocolate peanut design. The filling consist of peanut, rice crispies, a soft peanut paste like filling and caramel, which oozes slightly when you break a chunk off.

The flavours are a perfect mix of chocolate and nut, with a heavy dose of caramel for good measure. I love a mix of textures and this bar delivers that, with the peanuts being both crunchy and smooth. This bar works by having that mix of sweet and savoury, with the peanut adding that salty nutty goodness, and there being loads of sweet flavours from the creamy chocolate and the caramel. Each mouthful differs slightly in the ratios, but all have the distinct peanut flavour, that mixes well with the chocolate. The size of the chunks makes it a satisfying eat, filling and enjoyable. I say it with a little bias, as I love nuts, but I thought this bar was heaven.
One last thought, this bar categorically contains peanuts, it is all about the nuts. The back of the pack’s ingredients label lists peanuts in various places, but also states “May Contain Nuts”; I’m not sure I understand ingredients labels anymore.

Crunchy Nut Peanut Butter Clusters (by @NLi10)

On FaceBook I've been seeing a lot of sponsored posts by Kellogg's talking about their new Crunchy Nut cereal, Peanut Butter Clusters.  It was one of those 'limited edition' things where you just know if it takes off that it'll stick around, but that's the question - does this work?

It's not corn-flakes which is very disconcerting, and it's a lot closer to Nestle Clusters (which are fab because it's basically just sugar and nuts).  Here we see I've also gone for the least appealing of all the almond milks, having no added sugar or roasting - and I love it! This is what people who have switched to skimmed milk wish they were brave enough to move to.  It takes great with cereal, although I think it needs a bit more fat to bond with tea - maybe coconut is best for that (or the thicker stuff that the pro-coffee shops serve you).

The cereal itself smells very peanuty, and has a hit of crunchy nut about it, but just isn't as satisfying as that honey and peanut blend that I was raised on.  The texture is good, it's more like a granola, although the bites are very samey so it's maybe not as good as a couple of things I have lined up to review in the summer cereal releases.

It's a nice enough weekend cereal, it's well worth getting one box - and it'll certainly get finished, but I think it will stay in the 'limited edition' slot and will only be missed by Americans and those who need just that little bit more peanut to be satisfied.

Kettle Bites Maple Barbecue (Waitrose) By @SpectreUK

To mix things up I’m always on the lookout for snacks that are an alternative to crisps and nuts, so Kettle Bites Maple Barbecue flavoured Wholegrain Waves seemed to fit the bill. They are baked not fried for half the fat content, which will hopefully help my waistline after my huge bag of pork scratchings last night. I had been for a swim earlier in the day, but the pint of mild, and also the chocolate bar and hot chocolate drink afterwards hadn’t helped either. So, healthy eating today…
On opening the packet there was a strong sweet syrupy barbecue smell to the Wholegrain Waves inside. The waves had a decent crunch and a sweet taste to start with mixing well with the barbecue flavour and this was then followed by a very smoky aftertaste. The smoky taste was so strong that it was almost like sitting by a smoking camp fire and the wind suddenly changed right at me. I thought these Maple Barbecue Wholegrain Waves were very tasty indeed. They also have a mild chilli kick in amongst all that smokiness… cough, cough! ;-)
Information on the packet;
The 22g packet had 95 calories, with 2.8g of fat, 2.4g of sugar and 0.3g of salt. For ingredients see photograph.