Not Cross Buns (no fruit! just chocolate) M&S (By @NLi10)

As long-time readers will be aware - I'm not a fan of raisins and sultanas.  My partner is aware of this too so picked up some Salted Caramel & Chocolate Hot Cross Buns.  To share.

These are fruit free (yay!) and still contain the usual bits you'd expect so they taste like hot cross buns, and even look like them.  Just with yummy chocolate sweetness instead of odd bitter fruit.

See - they look like the real thing.

You can even see the bits inside!

You can slice and butter them too - is this what people do with them normally - i've no idea!

It says not to toast them though as I think they may melt and go wrong.

So yes - they are basically festive Brioche - but I can eat them and join in the stodgy goodness.  And I know it's not Easter for a bit yet, but I figured if I share it now a few more people who don't like the original configuration may be able to seek them out in time.

I really enjoyed them!

Salted Caramel Original Filled Doughnut (Krispy Kreme) By @SpectreUK

Cinabar brought these Salted Caramel Original Filled Doughnuts back from Krispy Kreme the other day. It's not often you see a ring doughnut that has a filling. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a filled ring doughnut before. This Krispy Kreme ring doughnut is advertised as "Our signature ring doughnut, filled with yummy salted caramel." It's also topped with salted caramel drizzle, just for that extra bit of caramel, just incase the filling isn't enough...

As you can see from the half section photograph there is gooey salted caramel filling the inside of the ring doughnut. That was Cinabar's doughnut. Whereas as Cinabar's Mom's and my own doughnuts didn't have salted caramel filling all the way round. So, we had three Salted Caramel Original Filled Doughnuts; one filled all the way round, and the other two a little patchy. Never mind though as they tasted fantastic. Gorgeous really. They were jam-packed with caramel flavour, patchy or not. There was a little saltiness in the sweet gooey caramel flavour and they went especially well with a cup of tea. I'd recommend them, sometimes patchy or not!

Cadbury Dairy Milk Big Taste Choco Biscuit Crunch (Waitrose) By @Cinabar

I though I’d tried most of the new Cadbury Dairy Milk bars, but my mum spotted this Dairy Milk Big Taste Choco Biscuit Crunch in Waitrose and picked it up to try. This is one big bar of chocolate, I think that sums up my initial thoughts. The bar contains a mix of biscuit, a milk cream filling, a cocoa filling and of course a decent amount of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Chocolate either side.
I broke a strip off the bar to try and realised that even this was a substantial chunk of chocolate on its own. The layers became very obvious inside, with the two different coloured cream fillings, milk and cocoa, sitting either side of the biscuit. The taste is sweet, rich chocolatey heaven. Both of the cream fillings are soft and sweet, and in combination with the chocolate you find that you can’t eat that much, which means the bar is going to last because as I said earlier it is a huge slab of chocolate. A few cubes is spot on. The bar has the name Crunch in the title and I think although it did have a mix of textures, there wasn’t quite a much crunch as I’d been expecting from that thick layer of biscuit. The cream fillings softened it somehow, but that was okay, there was still lots of interesting textures in this Cadbury Dairy Milk Big Taste Choco Biscuit Crunch and the bar makes a wonderful chocolate hit.

The Chocolate Scotch Egg (Heston from Waitrose) By @Cinabar

I suspect Waitrose called Heston and asked him to come up with something new and chocolatey for Easter. I imagine him sitting down over lunch to think about it and tucking into a scotch egg, and him realising that this is a type of egg, and this could work. Ok so I don’t exactly know how this curious product came about but here we have The Chocolate Scotch Egg by Heston from Waitrose. The whole concoction is chocolate based and it merely resembles its meaty picnic snack.
When I picked one off the shelf I hadn’t realised how loose the packaging was. I popped the Heston Chocolate Scotch Egg on the conveyor belt by the till and noticed as “breadcrumbs” spilt out everywhere. The lady on the till noticed too and got someone to switch the item for a new one for me. Then we all noticed that none of the lids closed properly on the boxes, seemly by design. I bought one anyway.

The egg itself does rain chocolate shavings wherever it goes, and once out of the box chocolate speckles appear everywhere. Any proper Scotch Egg should be cut in half to reveal a beautiful yolk. I attempted to recreate this, but it was a tough egg and broke in places, and I could quite get the inside shot I had wanted.

Either way after some failed efforts of a smart photo I went straight in and tried the Heston Chocolate Scotch Egg. The flavour was actually fabulous. There was a lovely rich sweet milk chocolate as the main flavour, but the taste had so many depths, tones of smokiness, and even hints of maple syrup. The centre itself, well the yolk, is flavoured with mango and yuzu (an ugly Japanese citrus fruit) and this ganache very fruity and sweet, with a mellow citrus flavour that was quite soft with nice hint of juicy mango.
The conclusion is despite the fact that this Heston Chocolate Scotch Egg is messy to eat and hard to cut the flavours are so good it is totally worth it. This is worth buying for the novelty, but more than that the flavour experience was new and intriguing, as was the texture from the multiple layers of goodness within. This is the Easter stocking filler you have been looking for.

PieMinister - Gluten Free Moo, Steak & Ale (@NLi10)

We are big fans of Pieminister in this house, so much so that we have a massive stash of the VIP points ready to cash in.  Luckily my partner saved them  - there are actually some good things to be redeemed for!

You'd need to basically buy two pies a week for a whole year to get to the good stuff though - which is luckily something that I (almost) manage to do!

Ocado had some of the newer Gluten Free pies in stock for this month's order so I jumped on board!  My partner had a Heidi.

So far so normal.  The gluten free one comes in a tray as if it's pretending to be a Higedy pie.  Maybe it's a little crumblier.

And they bake up fine too.  It looks a little less Pieminister than usual, but it's still a good pie.

And the inside is still the same - come to think of it - why wouldn't it be!  

The pastry has almost a more short-crust feel to it, a little drier and crispier.  It's actually a nice change in texture, and not detrimental to the experience at all.  I'm not sure that Gluten free helps anyone that isn't gluten intolerant (there isn't much evidence to support it) but if me buying this and enjoying it means that my friends who are sufferers can find the crucial brands on the shelf a little easier then I'm happy to join in - especially when they are as crispy as this!  Yum!