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.

Snack of the Month - M&Ms Crispy chocolate

First up, an announcement - I think this is going to be my last regular snack of the month post for a while. I've been blogging monthly snack posts for four years now so it feels like it's time for a break.

So, let's make it a fun, Christmassy one. This is another snack that Cathy found for me. There is a bit of M&M character confusion because Yellow M&M, who features on the wrapper in a Santa hat, is usually peanut. But there aren't any peanuts in this. Instead there are teeny tiny crispy M&Ms in a fondant centre.

The moulded character on the actual chocolate is well done, complete with giant Santa hat!

The chocolate shell is reasonably thick with a relatively decent shell-to-filling ratio.

The chocolate and filling are both quite sugary and sweet, as you'd expect from a Mars product. But as it's a small chocolate bar, it's not overwhelming. 

The Christmas snack market is over-saturated and I don't really think this will stand out much. However, as something quick to snaffle over the festive period it would be a welcome treat in my Christmas stocking!

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 - grape sherbet candy

Knowing how much I like grape flavoured things (jam, soda, sweets), Cathy bought me these in TK Maxx.

Not just grape. American grape!

All packaging should have info as clear as this. However I'm not quite sure why it needs vegan and vegetarian labels.

Inside the purple carton is a packet of sweets.

They are all individually wrapped.

And up close look like a typical boiled sweet.

They had a nice fruity flavour and a bit of fizzy sherbet that leaked out as I was sucking the sweet. I don't know if I would automatically place the taste as "grape" if this was a blind taste test. I'd probably have guessed they were going for blackcurrant. No surprises they are very sweet - and Cathy is very sweet for buying them for me! 

Limited edition Snack of the Month - cinnamon bun Flipz

This is the second time Flipz coated pretzels have featured as a Snack of the Month on my blog. Previously I reviewed a Christmassy gingerbread edition. 

This edition is quite similar. They are very sweet and vaguely taste of cinnamon similar to how the gingerbread ones were very sweet and vaguely tasted of ginger. Cathy wrinkled her nose up at the smell because it was too sweet. 

So, if you don't like sweet things, don't buy Flipz! I, however, do like sweet things. I'm not going to eat too many of these at a time though. 

Here's a photo showing the coating to pretzel biscuit coating. A thicker coating would be too sweet even for me.

Overall, I like the combination of sweetness and crunch in these snacks. They could do with more cinnamon. But then most cinnamon flavoured things do!

Snacks of the Month - choccy goosegogs and chin chin

Two snacks this month. First, another random snack from Lidl: chocolate covered  gooseberries. 

Cathy spotted them while we were having a mooch round one of the stores. I expect they were part of one of the themed weeks that Lidl do - in this case Polish week.

Gooseberries aren't massively popular berries. I like them in desserts and as jam - mainly because my mum had a very productive gooseberry bush in her previous back garden and both gooseberry jam and goosegog crumble featured in her home cooking. 

There's also a story about how some bitey creepy-crawley that lived in the productive gooseberry bush bit Mum and a little while later the infected bite hospitalised her... in the USA. But that's another story.

These goosegogs are creepy-crawley free and are coated in a rich dark chocolate. They're about the size of Maltesers.

I was able to remove the chocolate coating and leave the gooseberry intact. It was brown and didn't look appetising. Instead here's a cross section with the chocolate still on.

Cathy reckons she wouldn't recognise the taste as gooseberry but to me they had all the tangy sharpness I'd expect. The dark chocolate works well to complement the sharpness of the fruit. 

They taste very rich, though. I wouldn't be able to scoff a pack in one sitting (and I know I shouldn't anyway). But for an occasional burst of tart sweetness these are pretty good.

My second snack this month is Africa's Finest chin chin, which I found in Asda. Despite claiming to be Africa's Finest it's actually made in the UK.

One reason I bought this was because of a funny thing I remember when I was a kid. A few years after my family came back to the UK from Africa we were invited to a wedding. The groom's family were from Nigeria and his relatives had brought some African food to the reception.

My brother and I ignored the normal British style buffet and went straight for the African food, much to the amusement of the groom's female relatives who were surprised to see little white boys so keen to try their cooking. One of the things they had was a massive sack of chin chin. 

Chin chin is a crunchy biscuit produced in small square chunks and fried rather than baked. Sometimes flavourings are added, sometimes not. There usually isn't much sugar in it, just a tiny amount to give it a slight sweetness.

In contrast to the home made stuff I remember with heavily nostalgic bias, this commercially produced and packed chin chin wasn't as good. It had a great crunch. It tasted fine. 

But, honestly it was never going to live up to the chin chin I had at that wedding. 

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 - purple sweet potato chips

Another find in the world foods aisle in Asda. I was intrigued by these Malaysian-made potato chips in a can. Not least, by their self-defeating "No Brand" brand name.

Made in Malaysia. Imported by Korea Foods. A real pan-Asian experience just getting them into the shop.

On opening, it's apparent a good chunk of the tube was used for shipping air halfway across the globe.

They are very purple. Very. 

Purple.

Size-wise, they are a bit smaller than a Pringle. They're also much sweeter than I anticipated, more like mixed sweet and salty popcorn than a straight up savoury snack. They have a decent crunch and are suitable for a telly snack but I didn't eat too many because of the sweetness. 

Snack of the Month - Air Nuts!

Savoury snack this month. Another random find in the supermarket that I thought would be interesting to review. 

And what are air nuts? There's an explanation on the back of the packet. Nuts, flour and air, basically. 

Only 111 calories per bag! It's not hard to achieve such a low number of calories when there are literally only EIGHT air nuts in a bag. There's plenty of flavour dust as well. 

These look a bit like meteors.

Consistency-wise they are crunchy like breakfast cereal or savoury cookies. The "hot" chili flavour was very mild. 

Overall, they were nice but the stingy amount in the bag would put me off buying them regularly. 

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.