Snack of the Month: new wafers edition

I don't post a Snack of the Month every month any more, but here's a one off because I've tried a couple of new wafer biscuits in the last few weeks and decided to share my thoughts on them.

First up: Club Layers

It looks like a Club when it's unwrapped. I'm not sure whether it's real chocolate or not, after the recent news stories that actually it's not a lot of chocolate on your biscuit.

The filling is a tangy orange, like the orange fondant in a Club biscuit. I liked it and would recommend it if you like orange flavoured things.

The other wafer I've tried is Reese's Sticks.

As you'd expect, these are peanut butter flavoured, like all Reese's products. They come in a little cardboard protective tray inside the packaging. 

Again, I'm not convinced it's real chocolate in the coating. The peanut butter fondant is between the wafer pieces that are satisfyingly crisp.

Cathy reckoned they are too sweet. I'd concede they are sweet, but I like sweet things so I was quite happy with them.

Jaffa cakes from outer space (and Irish cookies)

In my quest to try all the flavours of Jaffa Cake, I've sampled this new "cosmic berry" flavour that Cathy spotted in the supermarket.

So, what is a cosmic berry? Well, it's a vaguely raspberryish sweet-with-a-hint-of-tartness quite clearly artificial flavour. Certainly not of this world if not quite 'out of this world'. It contrasted sharply with the dark chocolate coating, leaving a lasting aftertaste of cocoa.

My next jaffa adventure occurred when I went round to Bryan's house for our monthly game of Blood Bowl. Bryan produced a packet of Irish biscuits in a limited edition "Jaffa" flavour that he had found in another supermarket. 

Although the drift in what "jaffa" means in "jaffa cakes" means you could expect any flavour of filling, when "jaffa" is used in other food contexts it always means orange. These cookies were great, a strong yet not overpowering orange flavour, decent-sized chocolate chunks, a good choc coating on the reverse and a good snap when I broke one. 

The cookies were the high point of the game night for me. My dice rolls were utter crap, with my high agility wood elves failing basic agility roll after roll. Bryan was coaching his lizard-men team who bashed out a comfortable 2-0 win without barely a scratch on them. Ah, well.

I probably deserved to lose because I forgot to take Roxy the Kroxigor with me for Bryan to borrow. So we subbed in the frog god turn marker that comes with the lizard-men team as a proxy. Here's a picture of our Roxy kroxi proxy.

That was pretty much my expression at the end of the game. Pure disgust at the treacherous dice!

Yet more post-Jaffa Jaffa Cakes

We are falling a long way down the rabbit hole now. After "cola bottle" flavour last year (which were passable), the latest flavour to hit the shelves is "Hot Honey". 

This isn't some weird unknown company doing this. It's McVities (admittedly now part of some massive conglomerate) who keep pushing the flavour envelope with new random tasting jelly.

So what are hot honey Jaffa Cakes like? They have a sort of honeyish initial taste, but it's hard to tell. Could be fruit. Could be brown sugar. The heat is in a slight zingy chilli pepper aftertaste that lingered for a good 10 seconds or so. The overall effect was, mmm, damp squib, really.

I wouldn't recommend these if you're looking for a packet of Jaffa Cakes to crack open when company comes over. Unless you don't like the prospective company, in which case they would be ideal.

They have conveniently labelled the packet as well, to make sure you don't accidentally give them to someone you like.

Also, McVities are leaning into the biscuit v cake debate with a humorous bar code! (Well I found it funny!)

Snack of the Month - Oreo weirdness

Oreos divide opinion. I've heard several negative comments about them. Personally I quite like them although I think I liked them more when they were harder to find in the UK. Now they are almost everywhere and in almost every format - mini, 'double stuffed', chocolate covered - and in a host of flavours.

And then there's this.

Yeah, that's right. Cookie flavoured pop.

I tried it so you don't have to. It is most definitely fizzy pop that leaves an aftertaste of Oreo cookies. (Which makes me wonder how artificial the flavour of the actual cookies are if they can replicate them in a drink.) 

This isn't some bizarre import, either. That's the British spelling of "flavoured" printed on the can.

I couldn't drink much of this, simply because after each mouthful it felt like I had eaten an Oreo. And there are only so many biscuits I feel I should eat in one go. 

Meanwhile, how about some actual biscuits? Cathy bought both these flavours for me, along with the can. 

Oreo Red Velvet and Oreo Gingerbread. Bit of a departure from the regular flavour.

Is this really a trick? Everyone knows about this with Oreos, don't they?

They tasted different. I'm not sure what red velvet cake is meant to taste like. They sort of tasted like red velvet cake. 

I wasn't very keen on them and didn't finish the packet.

The gingerbread ones, however, were absolutely delicious. They didn't have too much ginger in them but they had enough to give a little zing. 

And the pattern on the biscuit was delightful too!

Overall verdicts: undrinkable pop, meh red velvet flavour biscuits, cracking gingerbread flavour biscuits. 

Snack of the Month: Moomin choccy biccies

Lidl had these in for their 'Scandinavian week'. Cathy bought me a box as she knows I'm a fan of the Moomins and also a fan of chocolate biscuits. 

The packaging is adorable.

There's a line up of the characters on the top of the box. One of them is chocolate side up so remains anonymous until you open the packaging.

Turns out it was Moomintroll's best friend, Snufkin (bottom left).

The six characters are Moomintroll, the Snork Maiden (Moomintroll's girlfriend), Moominpappa, Moominmamma, Snufkin, and either the Mymble or her sister Little My. The Mymble would make more sense as she is the same height as the other characters whereas Little My is comparatively little (as her name implies). 

Biscuit-wise, they were very nice plain biscuits. They weren't too sweet. The milk chocolate was decent quality and enhanced the biscuitiness of the biscuits. 

The box contained a decent number of biscuits so it lasted a few days. (I showed more restraint than Moomintroll would have.)

Snack of the month - Gold Billions Wafer

A mid-afternoon shortage of milk prompted a short walk to the local Post Office, where this unusual confectionary treat was sitting on the counter. One intrigued impulse purchase later... 

It's about the size of a KitKat Chunky. Maybe a fraction thinner.

Colour-wise, it's not as yellow as a McVities Gold wrapped biscuit, despite being a product evolved from that very successful item.

The discolouration on the side of the bar was unsightly.

But explained by a layer of milk chocolate on the underneath of the bar. This chocolate was a decent quality and offset the sweetness of the caramel flavour coating on the rest of the bar.

The wafer was crispy, but not too hard. 

The filling around the wafer meant it wasn't too dry. It wasn't over-filled either.

Overall, this was a very sweet wafer snack. It bordered on sickly. If the caramel coating had been used all over it that would have made it even sweeter so the milk chocolate was a good design  choice. 

And although I enjoyed it enough to not regret my impulse purchase I won't be rushing to buy another one. Worth trying once, though.

Snack(s) of the month: biscuits and peas

After a 'double bust' in July, I'm blogging two good snacks this month.

The first snack was a gift from my friends Paul and Val, who brought me back some sugar biscuits from Menorca. 

These had quite a low fat content, which meant Cathy could snack on them too. The chocolate ones were our favourites, but honestly neither pack lasted very long.

The second snack was an impulse purchase called Pulse (without the im). 

There were plenty of peas in the packet. They were supposed to be salt and pepper flavour, although I couldn't taste much of the flavouring.

However, they were very moreish with a nice crunch and a good savoury flavour. I'd happily buy them again.