Moomin confectionery

Courtesy of "Nordic" week at Lidl (which is far more accurate than Scandinavian week given the Moomins are from Finland!) come these little jelly sweets. My sister excitedly tipped me off about them this morning and so, when I went past Lidl later, I popped in and bought a packet.

They are made by the same company that made the chocolate biscuits I blogged about last year (when apparently it was 'Scandinavian week', not Nordic week). The flag on the back confirms their Finnish origins. 

There are four fruity flavours. Pomegranate is an unusual choice to include. Helpfully the flavours are listed in multiple languages so you can learn the Finnish names for the four fruit too.

And there are five characters to munch on - Moomintroll, Moominpapa, Moominmamma, Sunfkin and Little My. 

The fruit taste is subtle. They don't taste like actual fruit, but they taste more natural than a lot of sweets, and even the orange is very mild.

So, yeah, happy Nordic week everyone!

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! 

It seems "Jaffa" has lost all meaning

Jaffa Cakes were called Jaffa Cakes because the jelly bit was orange flavoured. The name has been stretched for a while, with all sorts of fruity flavours available. 

But McVities have now taken it a step further by dispensing with fruit as the flavouring altogether. Instead, their latest special edition Jaffa Cakes are "cola bottle" flavour. 

There is an unusual marketing tactic on the side of the box - basically daring you to prove you are brave enough to eat them.

The cola bottle saying "Sweeet!" sums up the flavour. They are very sweet with a slight cola flavour which did taste like cola bottle sweets. The jelly is brown like cola bottle sweets too. 

The "serving suggestion" is a mystery. It looks like cola bottle sweets floating in blood.

I remember when Jaffanatics were called Jaffaholics. McVities even used to advertise a Jaffaholics Anonymous phone line. I called them up once and they sent me some free toys called Tangs - they had 'koosh' bodies and funny faces.

Jaffanatics sounds better to me than Jaffaholics. It's important we don't over-medicalise this sort of thing. 

Snack of the month: European chocolate adventures

Last month we went to Disneyland Paris and while we were in France I took the opportunity to try some chocolate bars I hadn't seen before. I've decided to review them here but the delay between me eating them and me reviewing them means the reviews might be quite short!

The chocolate bars were:

Nougatti by Cote d'Or

Snax by Cote d'Or

Balisto

Joyfuel - chocolat au lait & cookie dough flavour

Nuts by Nestle

By far the best ones were the Cote d'Or bars as they has really nice chocolate on them. I'd eat the Nestle 'Nuts' bar again, but it wasn't as nice as the Cote d'Or bars. The Balisto was OK as something to try. The Joyfuel bar was one of those protein power bar things that are on trend over here and are basically the equivalent of energy drinks in the beverage aisle. A lot of promises and a weird inauthentic taste. I mainly bought it so I could send a picture to my niece, Joy.

And on to the more detailed reviews...

Composition-wise, the Nougatti bar was pretty much what you might expect - a soft nougat wrapped in chocolate. It had enough consistency to get slightly stuck on your teeth, as nougat is wont to do. 

The Snax came in two parts and from the wrapper I thought it might be peanut butter in a thick chocolate shell with peanuts embedded in it. 

Instead, the central core was a whipped nougat, like you'd find in a Mars Bar. There was crisped rice in the chocolate which gave an added crunch. It also came in two pieces, which makes it a good bar to share. I scoffed both pieces myself, though - and too quickly to take any pictures!

The Nuts bar was like a Mars Bar, complete with nougat and soft caramel, except for a line of hazelnuts down the middle of it. It was a good combo although the sweet flavour of the nuts couldn't compete with the sweetness of the nougat, caramel or chocolate. Generally I find Nestle chocolate overly sweet and this didn't dissuade me of my opinion. 

Balisto was two thin biscuits with an unmemorable fondant creme on top. Like I've already said they aren't a bar I'd bother eating again if there were other options. I ate my Balisto in the dark in DisneyLand and didn't attempt to take any photos. 

The Joyfuel bar had a weird composition. I couldn't taste the 'cookie dough' flavour and there didn't seem to be any bits in it that were meant to be cookie dough, although it was chewy. 

It probably goes well with a can of Monster or a bottle of Prime. I'd certainly class it in with the stuff that is more hype than flavour. 

But my niece Joy liked the photo I sent her, so it was worth it. 

Snack of the Month - sweet cinnamon "chocolate"

Is "white chocolate" really chocolate? That's a question to prompt arguments. Ritter Sport just call this bar "white cinnamon crisp" and leave chocolate out of it. A wise move.

 

I am a big fan of cinnamon flavoured things. Hot Tamales candy, the Extra Fire gum that Wrigleys used to sell, cinnamon flavoured breakfast cereal, pretty much anything. 

And the cinnamon flavour of these bars is acceptable. However they are also incredibly sweet. And I say that as someone with a high tolerance for sweetness.

Based on the consistency and sweetness it feels like the "crisp" in the cinnamon crisp is cinnamon infused sugar. 

The overall verdict is this is too sweet to eat a whole bar in one sitting, at least on the first go. Maybe by building up tolerance over time I could, but I don't really want to desensitise my palette like that.

Snack of the Month - Munchies with a seasonal twist

Cathy found these super-cheap in Asda's post-Christmas clearing out of Christmassy things. 

As with the Flipz I reviewed in December, this was an attempt to make an established product Christmassy by giving it a 'gingerbread flavour'. 

I really like pfeffernusse and lebkuchen at Christmas-time. This probably relates back to when I was a child in West Africa and some of the people my parents worked with were receiving parcels of gingerbread goodies from their families in Germany. I would rather have proper gingerbread than gingerbread flavour things.

Inside the packet they look like Munchies look.

Inside the Munchies there is a crunchy biscuit bit and some very, very sweet filling.

The overwhelming sensation from these sweets is sweetness. They are on the brink of sickly. So, while I enjoyed having the chance to try them (and blog about them), I will stick with actual gingerbread in future. 

Christmas inflation crisis

I wasn't going to blog on Christmas Day, but this bag of chocolate currency that I received this morning is an illustration of how inflation is affecting everything in the economy!

There's a £20 note in there!!

(The chocolates are from Lidl and they're fair trade. They taste very sweet, more like how drinking chocolate tastes. The notes and coins taste the same!)

Happy Christmas!

Marketing b*llocks!! (Literally.) "Camel Balls" bubble gum - a branding case study

I saw these sweets being sold in the independent shop at the end of my street. I had to take a picture.

Look tasty, don't they.

Yep, that's right, bubble gum "Camel Balls". I stuck the photo on Facebook with predictable results from adults who were stunned by it and the one teenager who commented saying they were "actually surprisingly good".

In a way, I kind of admire their marketing. These are not sweets for grown ups. No Lindor master confectioner swirling delicious creamy chocolate in a bowl here. No, instead we have a pervy looking camel ready to teabag us with his over-sized camel nads. (Strangely no penis. Perhaps not so strangely...)

I can imagine teenage boys in particular taking great delight in these, and in that sense they are brilliantly marketed. They are deliberately gross - why else the emphasis on being "liquid-filled"? - but they are just about borderline indecent to be amusing rather than out and out offensive. The company know who they are aiming for and they just about manage to do it without making parents testy and writing outraged letters to the paper.

I also love the additional selling points tagged onto the box. These are gluten free, folks. Gluten free! Because the last thing you'd want to have to check is the small print on a camel ball bag to find that out.

What can we learn from this? Know your market and pitch to them. This isn't a product for everyone. And if you are going to be 'gross', then you might as well be as gross as possible. Even though the sweets look disgusting (to me), I like the way the marketing doesn't hold back at all.

Please leave a comment with your thoughts

Read another blog about marketing: The psychological basis for what makes a TV ad memorable
Also: Branding brilliance: How to make your Death Metal band stand out

Chewing gum - cinnamon flavours put to the test

I like trying different types of chewing gum, For a while I've thought about doing a blog dedicated just to chewing gum, but that seems a bit sad. I'm not sure it's any less sad blogging about it on this blog, but anyway...

Why isn't cinnamon gum popular in the UK? Cinnamon candy, generally, is an American thing. I love Hot Tamales made by the Mike and Ike people, Just Born. I discovered those sweets on our California road trip and have eaten pounds of the stuff over the years.

But cinnamon doesn't seem to work as a candy flavour in the UK. A few years ago Wrigley launched a cinnamon flavour called 'Fire' in it's Extra range. But that was discontinued fairly quickly and it's been a long time since it was generally available.

Here are three types that are available.

The Wrigley's Big Red is an American import. It's pricey and it's full sugar. The Pur gum is one I found in a vegan shop a couple of weeks ago. It's tasty and sugar-free, but the flavour disappears quite quickly. The Chicza one is a bit hippyish as well. I bought it at the Eden Project and it claims to be made using traditional Mayan ingredients. Because they are all-natural it's one of the few chewing gums that's biodegradable.

The Pur gum comes in a 'pill packet' meaning you pop out a caplet when you want to chew it. This has an advantage of meaning the gum doesn't go off when you open the packet. I reckon a good 20 per cent of normal chewing gum gets discovered, slightly soft, at the bottom of bags or in pockets and gets binned, so this is a good solution.

The Chicza stuff is a bit weird. It's very soft, meaning it feels like it's gone off a bit already. It's part of a range that includes mint and also lime for a tangy change.

And finally, for something completely different, how about coffee flavoured gum? This comes from Turkey, I think. Someone gave it to me a while ago for a laugh. The pellets are an attractive black and it comes in a box that looks a bit like a cigarette pack.

It tastes OK, actually. Like mild coffee or coffee cake.

So, there you go. The first blog post specifically about chewing gum. There may be more in future. (There's also a reference to some vaguely blasphemous gum in this blog post. Enjoy.)

Disconcerting things #1

When you have an unwrapped chocolate in a box of wrapped chocolates (e.g. a loose Fudge in a box of Cadbury's Heroes).

Eat it or bin it? Eat it or bin it? Hmmmm.

Forbidden sweets

Trying again to eat more healthily and what happens? Someone brings out a big tin of evil Nestle Quality Street with, mmmm, toffee pennies in, as a thank you for helping shift 400 boxes of envelopes from one store-room to another.

Now I have double-guilt, despite the envelope-moving exercise.

Overdone

Cadbury's Caramel - one of the nicest chocolate bars around, even if we do miss the sultry bunny rabbit who used to tell the woodland folk to 'Take it Easy'. People said the Flake adverts were sexy, but compared to Caramel...

Cadbury's Caramel Eggs, however, are far too caramelly. And, frankly, are not very nice.

Ah, the elicit yumminess of banned chocs

Yesterday we went to a VIP screening of A Good Year, the new Russell Crowe film directed by Ridley Scott. I quite like Ridley Scott films and this one was as visually impressive as I’d expect, although the story had a bit of a twee ending. Freddie Highmore, last seen as Charlie of Chocolate Factory fame in Tim Burton’s gothic homage to Roald Dahl, played the young Russell, and was excellent, as was Albert Finney (who bizarrely was in Burton’s Big Fish and voiced a character in Corpse Bride). It did make you ask the question though: Is it worth winning the rat race if all you get to be is king rat? (Jongudmund’s rating: 7/10)

The great thing about these VIP showings is that you get a free drink and sweets. Last night I had a pack of Rolos – usually forbidden because they’re made by Evil Nestle (their full name, apparently), while Cath had a pack of Revels for what she maintains is the first time ever! It’s amazing how she can still surprise me after almost 12 years together. “You must have had Revels before!” “No, I never have.” I believe her because she got totally caught out by the coffee flavoured ones. Blurgh.

Irony of the night
Besides free drinks and sweets there’s also a raffle, which Cath and I both had a strange feeling that we’d win. And we did. The prize was a case of 12 bottles of award-winning wine. …And neither of us drink at the moment due to our meds.

Weird coincidence of the night
Irony Boy’s fiancée is out of town so he brought a housemate along as his ‘date’. Bizarrely she used to work at the cinema and left very shortly before I started there back in 2001.

It was a long trip home

Impressions of Belfast
I wouldn't mind visiting this place properly. On Friday morning when we drove to the office we passed the architecturally stunning Queen's University (here's a picture). True on one of our trips we also passed an estate that proclaimed itself as a Loyalist community - complete with red, white and blue painted kerbstones - but generally it seemed a normal place.

In the airport I found a new sweet to add to my list of odd cinnamon flavoured sweets. Ritchie's Cinnamon Lozenges are quite mild and look like chalky dissolvable tablets, so not a patch on Hot Tamales.

We had some trouble getting from Bristol airport to Cardiff, with a vehicle breakdown (fortunately fixed by the RAC) and dreadful traffic congestion on the M4 by Newport and then on Atlantic Wharf because they'd shut the Butetown tunnel. It took me about 5 hours from landing in Bristol to walk in my front door 40-odd miles away. The irony is that we went in Helen's car because both me and June thought our cars were a bit unreliable at the moment... Live and learn, eh.