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McVitie's Caramel Chocolate Digestives
Kcal 80 Fat 4.0g Fat(sats) 2.0g Carbs 5.0g (per biscuit)
It was an education to learn of the existence of these but given my love of caramel chocolate it was an offering I certainly had no qualms trying out. The 300.0g pack cost me £1.40 in my local Tesco - on a £/Kg basis these were at a price premium versus standard McVitie's Chocolate Digestives.
In size these Caramel Digestives were smaller in hand at around two thirds the stature of the normal digestives. I was hoping the that the caramel integration was going to involve some sort of liquidy centre, however I was to be disappointed by more a chewy toffee like substance that ran between the thin chocolate layer and the biscuit base. Ultimately the caramel layer was more disappointing than it was poor, it was fine for what it was, but it only offered an extra added dose of sweetness to the taste which negated the usual saltiness of the biscuit to a degree. Not horrible, but not a pack of biscuits I would rush out and buy again.
6.8 out of 10
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Mcvitie's Quirks Chocolate And Hazelnut
Kcal 61 Fat 4.0g Fat(sats) 1.0g Carbs 4.0g (per biscuit)
The majority of the reviews today are ones that have been asked for by readers but these new McVitie's Quirks first caught the eye when I saw them announced in the trade back in July - See HERE. You got to love the marketing spiel: "Our research has shown this launch will be accepted extremely well by consumers" ... oh really now eh :D
I bought these again in Tesco on an introductory £1.00 offer - this got me a pack of about 16 biscuits that had a catch-weight of 175.0g. In terms of packaging and presentation everything to me cam across as very lazily designed. The outer foil wrapper was overly plain and simplistic (boring!!!), whilst the unbranded biscuits themselves looked horrendously generic and unexciting. Taste-wise these tested a little better than they looked. The biscuit portion offered a generic set of floury, sugar noted flavours, though the inner hazelnut hinted chocolate cream at least went some way to taking them on further and adding a little more interest. These biscuits were 'accepted extremely' averagely by this consumer :D
6.6 out of 10
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Fox's Melts Chocolate Vienesse
Kcal 83 Fat 4.9g Fat(sats) 2.9g Carbs 8.8g (per biscuit)
According to a good few people who fedback after my classic chocolate biscuit bits and bob post, Chocolate Vienesse biscuits were a shocking absentee from my original selection. Personally I wouldn't bracket them in alongside those all time greats, though I was more than happy to give them a ChocolateMission airing.
Chocolate Vienesse come ten-a-penny in this country so I wasn't lacking options when it came to choosing which to review. I was initially keen on the the Marks & Spencer ones, though I thought I would settle for the ones I think the British public know best, which are these made by Fox's. The current packaging and presentation was all fair from my perspective though, I did get a niggling sense that the size of the biscuits had been slimmed down since I last had them. Taste wise nothing seemed out of place with the buttery shortcake like biscuit a nice light foil for the inner sticky layer of milk chocolate. The chocolate cut through in the taste was of a sound quality, however the light biscuit and chocolate flavour hit were both a little short-lived for my liking compared to other more substantial biscuits reviewed recently.
7.2 out of 10
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Mcvitie's Hobnobs Medley Caramel Milk Chocolate
Kcal 134 Fat 4.8g Fat(sats) 2.1g Carbs 20.9g (per bar)
I know this isn't strictly a chocolate biscuit but hey the rules are pretty lax around here :D The McVitie's Hobnobs Medley bars have been out for almost a year and I since that time I have tried all three of the original flavours - Raisin (HERE), Hazelnut (HERE) and Peanut (HERE). In April 2011, McVitie's announced they would be bring a £2m advertising campaign to further push the Medley range (HERE).
If you read that article above you will notice there was no mention made of this new Caramel Milk Chocolate flavour which I found in my local Sainsbury's store. As far as I'm aware this flavour has replaced the Peanut one, though it wasn't as if that flavour had great distribution anyway. In construct this bar was a mirror image of the others in that it was an oat and wheat flake bases bar which was fused with a sticky honey tasting like glaze. On the underside of the bar a caramel flavoured chocolate was coated reasonably thickly and provided a better than fair chocolatey taste that did indeed have a little hint of buttery syrup to it. Cereal bars aren't a snack of choice for me all that often but I would happily have one of these again.
7.7 out of 10
Posts
60 comments:
I want to get this in early so everyone sees it :)
Plain McVitie's Hob Nobs = BEST BISCUITS IN THE WORLD.
End of story. No need for anymore biscuit reviews Jim. Shut it down.
Do we get a proper weekend post tomorrow Jim? Good round up on the news page btw mate. I hadn't seen the stories you posted up. Thats what its alll about I suppose lol.
For a guy that days he doesn't like biscuits you know an awful lot about them ;)
DId you see my feedback the other day about having one high scoring product in each Bits and bobs review you do J? I thought that was a good idea as it at least means that each one is worthwhile. You didn't say anything back to me when you were responding to comments.
It makes me laugh everytime I see you do biscuit reviews now. There was a time way back in the day when you point blank refused to review biscuits :) Now it seems you can't get enough of them old boy lol.
That aint no complaint there matey. I'm more than happy to see you get some biccies up on here. Just seeing chocolate all the time would get boring.
Hey hun. I think you have been unkind to those caramel digestives, I think they make normal chocolate digestives much more interesting. I know you differed but I liked the caramel being chewy rather than like a liquid one. Do you not think a softer caramel would have made the biccies soggy and yucky? Theres nothing worse than a limp biscuit, all biscuit dunkers need to locked in jail if you ask me.
Rxxx
I think you should rename to the biscuit chocolate mission. The reviews you do of biccies are every bit as gd as your normal choc ones. I think you made a brill decision starting to review them on top of all the choccies.
The best biscuits I've had by far recently are the double stuff oreo. They are still a little hard to find round my ends, they are out of stock in my asda more often that not. Next time I see some I'm going to stock pile a few packs so I don't run out again lol.
You need to review some choc covered shortbread.
Why do you not review anything from Heavenly Cakes anymore?
I used to love seeing your reviews of their stuff but you never talk about them anymore :( You even once said you had been sent stuff from them but then you never wrote any reviews.
Jim, the odd biscuit review is cool and all but just remember its your normal chocolate reviews that are the best. Don't ever stop doing them.
You watching the 3rd test mate? Total domination again isn't it. I think we are going to win the series 4-0 now.
Pretty much all these are new aren't they. I can never keep up with all of these new fangle biscuits. I just stick to what I know with custard creams lol.
You need to start posting warnings if you are going to be posting biscuit reviews in the morning :) Are you not aware that once a person has read a review about a biscuit they just have to go get one for their tea? :p Its a good thing you haven't talked any of these being epically amazing. That makes it ten times harder to resist lol.
You can now get vienesse mini bites in a pouch like you cadbury fingers. Lol I should know I ate a whole one of them last night. I felt awfully guilty after doing so but they were just sooooo moreish I couldn't help myself. Don't worry it's a gym day today ;)
Are you revealing the competition winners tomorrow? I hope you are I could do with being able to uncross my fingers lol.
The only one I don't agree with you on are the Vienesse biccies.
I think they are the best biscuits you can buy. Whats not to like with shortbread and chocolate? I would of thought they were at least worthy of an 8/10.
I'm with you 100% about the quirk biscuits. They are so boring. I had just the normal chocolate ones jim, count yourself lucky you got the ones with hazelnut in.
You not tried any of the mcvities temptations yet Jimbob? If you haven't can I submit a request please. I forget the flavours specifically but I think there is defo a praline one. White chocolate and fudge maybe? I dunno you will have to investiagte that for us.
I love it that you get the reviews of the new things up so quickly. It makes me save so much money not wasting my money on seeing if they are good myself. Knowing me I would have blatantly of bought those Quirk biscuits if I had seen them without your review. I seriosuly wont bther with them now. They look rubbish.
Who came up with the name bits an bobs?
Bit of a funny name to call a load of random junk.
Everytime I see you say you say you are buyin packs of biscuits for £1 I laugh to myself
Buying biscuits that cost more than that these days is just stupid. There are always something half decent at that price. Unless you are after a particular make of biscuit you have to be pretty stupid (or rich lol) to pay more than that.
7 for the digestive caramels? Omg I think you need to stick to the chocolate reviews son. You aren't cut out for reviewing biscuits if you undervalue those by that much lol.
Those Medleys are rubbish compared to the Kelloggs fibre bars. I know they sound like they are better because they have hobknobs in but trust me folks the fibre ones are ten times tastier. Whats good about them is that they also make you feel full up for ages aswell. The medleys don't do that for me.
Bit of a mcvitie's supe party post today I see. 3 out of 4 of these are made by them, I didn't realise it at first because all of them are quite different.
Do you like mufffins Jim? Some reviews of what you think the best muffins are would be soooooooo good.
I don't want to influence your reviews at all but I think you should review the Starbucks double chocolate muffin ;-) Trust me on this one you wont be regretting it.
This is a proper bits and bobs review lol. Not like that one last week where you only showed us the three things. If I were you I would keep the wording even shorter and just post the pictures + the graph. Well, actually you will want to keep some of the words for your reasoning but we don't need details like the marketing guffyness.
Omg could they have made those quirk biscuits look any more boring? They look like the sort of biscuits a three year old would make. I don't think you are the only one that will be disappointed when you first see them.
Vienesse biscuits are by far the nicest imo. I wouldn't have based your review of them on those Fox's ones though. They aren't the best. Marks and Spencers make good ones.
Everywhere I look all I see is stuff about those bloody Medley bars, I cannot escape.
I don't understand why they are doing all this advertising a whole year after they first came out. Would it of not made more sense to have done all this when they were actually new. I'm obviously no marketier.
You just summed up the problem with biscuits nowadays in just one post. Everything new that is created is just average. There hasn't been a biscuit made for ages that has stood the test of time.
The only success stories I can think of are Oreos and Mikado, and they were both well established in diffferent countries before they got big here. Mcvities, foxs etc just feel happy with making random 'NEW' lines and then removing/relaunching them every 6 months. Perhaps if they developed something properly with real research they might make something there is demand for lol.
I'm looking forward to hearing about my competition win tomorrow Jimbo. I did see the cloudy lemonade when I went in to the store yesterday but I put off buying it in hope you will announce me as a winner winner chicken dinner.
Fair play to Mcities you cant say they don't try to innovate. It could be argued they are perhaps doing it a little too much. Theres a fine a balance to be struck between not innovating at all and then innovating too much. Somewhere in the middle would be best for us all.
I had a great idea for a new biscuit. Whenever I used to bake when I was small I used to make peanut butter cookies - why don't Mcvities or someone like that make them? Plenty of people like peanut butter, there's no need for all these fancy chocolate ones they keep coming up with. Keep it simple I say.
Bits and Bobs wooooohoooo!
I saw you were asking people what sort of features we want to be seeing more of and if it were up to me I would say do more of these. I think bits and bobs are just so much fun. I like the reviews of the chocolates but I also appreciate the ones you don't take so seriosuly.
FYI you wont be able to buy the peanut (orange coloured) Medley bars anymore. I heard mcvities took them out and replaced them with this new caramel one.
I thought you only posted Bits and bobs on weds? I aint complaining. This was cool to see man.
Jim have you seen the new Maryland chunky cookies? If I remember right you are more a cookie man than you are a biscuit one right? If thats the case give those a try, they have all sorts of flavours now.
Hey J,
So the Sneijder rumours wont go away hey? I hope it all gets resolved sooner rather than later. I'm so so bored hearing about it all in the papers. Those guys desperately need something to write about, its so boring now man. The only thing worse than hearing you are likely to sign a world class player is that the footie might be called off this weekend because of the rioting. Its going to be so so lame if it is. These people need to sort their lives out.
Great biscuit superpost by the way. Loving your photos as normal, you manage to always bring out the best of them (even those quirk things!). I'm thinking of even picking up a pack of those caramel digestives on my travels today.
Cheers
N
Disappoint of the year = the new cadburys mascots. Seriously they have to stop doing this. It's so annoying them saying something is new when all it is something they already make reshaped. It's not even dairy milk chocolate. I can see Jim doing himself a hernia over this one.
Great biscuit round up J. I don't shop the biscuit aisle much so it's cool seeing some of the newer biscuits that are out now. I will have to tell my mum to get involved with some of those caramel digestives. It doesnt sound like they are perfect but I still would like to try them myself just to see what I think myself.
McVities are taking a proper scatter gun approach to all these new biscuits lol. They seemed to be pumping out all sorts of different new makes of biscuits ... quirks, temptations etc. I guess it's just their tactics to throw a load of stuff out there and see what sticks with people. Its one way to do it I suppose.
I get there's always going to be demand for new products and things people haven't seen before but what some of these go to prove is that people in this country have firm favourites that they won't stray away from.
I think it's pretty likely that all four of the things you show today could be gone from the supermarkets within a year. You put them next to normal digestives or bourbon biscuits and you just know that they don't stand a chance lasting as long as them. In a way I think we are quite set in our ways here in the UK. We know what we like and we stick to it.
I think the reason why some of these newer biscuits aren't successful is because they always come in priced so much more than the normal biscuits you can buy. Even at £1 they are a ton more expensive than say a pack of Tesco chocolate digestives. They are like 55p at most. Its not like people are going to pay more for something they don't know they are going to like.
jim I think I need to come work in your office. Do you really get people bringing in biscuits all the time? In my work office people never share. They buy their own packs of biscuits and keep them on their desks.
It sounds like you almost like the people you work with ;P Thats kinds not the case for me lol.
The only biscuits I would buy out of these lot are the Vienesse. The rest Mcvities can just keep. I don't like any of their biscuits apart from the normal digestives.
I think all of their chocolate ones are just a waste of time in the main part. It's always just uber thin and never tastes that nice. One thing that has chaught my attention in one of the other comments though is this talk of dark choc topped digestives. I suspect they might be better that the normal choc ones. I will have to try them.
One thing I've never understood about these biscuit companies is why they never do packs that have a selection of different ones in there. A pack that has all different types of digestives in there would just be immense mate. They could have plain, milk chocolate, dark, orange, caramel ... they got so many now they could make a wicked mixture.
If you ever need any suggestions for more biscuit reviews just tell me Jim. We are biscuit fiends in our house, we are always buying different sorts. Lol my brother normally ends up scoffing most of them the cheeky bugger. He would eat anything.
Great review today Jim (they always are lol). Im not a great biscuit lover, I dont mind the odd one or a ginger nut or shortbread.
Its been years since we bought Caramel digestives, they were ok but theyd sit in the tin. Ive never really liked chocolate Vieneese biscuits so weve never really bought theme ither. My sister bought the double choc Quirks, she really likes them lol I wasnt bowled over atall, I thought them a bit odd to be honest. Ive only just spotted any Medley bars so have never had any but cant see me bothering unless I see them reduced lol
I love the look of those Quirks biscuits when broken into two. Sure, the wrapper looks horrible, but I love this kind of biscuits when done right - the cream inside is actually... creamy and not just some dry filling. And from your picture it looks like they are done right :)
The best known such biscuits we get are Ulker Biskrem (which come in many versions: regular ones, apple, fig, hazelnut, duo, dark, plus cinnamon ones around Christmas). There are also the Eti (another Turkish brand) Tutku biscuits and some supermarkets have their own brands - like these (I bought them less than a month ago). I love the concept, but sometimes it happens that the filling isn't creamy... it's dry. And I hate that. I think it last happened with Ulker's Cinnamon Biskrem - the filling was completely dry. And even with those biscuits from cora, there was a bit of dry filling around the edges, where it bordered the biscuit. Usually the fruity versions don't have this kind of problem because they're made with jam (like this one)
HI All,
Well the countdown to the weekend is on. I've got a lot to do in the office before I clock off for a few days, but don't you worry ChocolateMission fans I have taken the time to look through your words of wisdom.
Tomorrow I will announce the winners of the Thorntons bars so be sure to check out the site for that.
RYAN - I don't agree with you but at least you were blunt and to the point :D
PAUL - You do get a full weekend post. Changes are coming though :D
NEIL - I would love to do that but I never know what is going to score well and what isn't.
IAN - Heavenly Cakes will be returning to the website very soon. Watch this space.
CHRIS - I am indeed watching us become the best team in the world :D
FRANCESCA - See above
DUNCAN - Look for them appearing in the next B&B.
ANON - I coined it myself :D It's not a bad name is it :D I think it works well - better than 'random junk' anyways :D
COOKIE - Who doesn't like muffins :D I will see what i can do regarding some reviews. I don't see why I couldn't review some.
RODGE - New product development isn't an easy game to play. You want to be seen to be innovating but you don't want to overdo it. McVitie's could potentially be a little guilty of the latter recently.
STU - Well you will find out the winners soon enough chap :D
KATIE - PB cookies? If you ever want to send any along then don't feel afraid to do so haha :D
MYSTERIO - Bit's & Bobs will likely be posted on Friday's from now on.
GARY - I've seen them but not tried them yet. Request noted.
NIGEL - I think the Sneijder deal is dead in the water chap. I don't think it's going to happen anymore. He just wants too much money ... a greedy footballer ... unheard of that!
MICHAEL - Thanks for the buzzkill haha!
FiFi - I think they try to justify being a price premium by being more specialist. It's hard to get the idea they are special though when they are £1.00 straight off the bat though isn't it.
ALAN - Thanks Alan. I share your fondness for both of those biscuits chap. Thanks for sharing your opinions on the biscuits ... I have a sneaky feeling that Medley bars might be making their way to Home Bargains one of these days :D You might be in luck.
ANA - I like the look of those biscuits you've linked in. You like a slightly moistened filling then? I'm with you on that. HAve you ever tried any British made biscuits? We fancy ourselves at being pretty dabhand when it comes to them :D
Thanks for the comments everyone! Have fab weekends.
JIM
You should set up a new leaderboard for just biscuits. It's silly comparing them on the same basis as chocolate bars, that just doesn't work.
The mcvities quirks aren't half as bad as you are making out.
I would agree they aren't anything special but at the same time there isn't anything wrong with them. I had the ones in the brown packet which are called double chocolate. I wouldn't have any probs buying them again.
Why aren't you allowing people to comment? Thats just stupid.
Great end to the week mate. You've done a wicked variety of stuff this week you have really spoilt us man. Hotel Chocolat, something random + biscuits. It doesn't get better than that.
Omg I need a biscuit now lol. I think we only have boring rich tea lights in our biscuit barrell :( My mums on a bloody health kick again. Shes obsessed.
Bits and Bobs = Best posts ever.
Jim I saw you retweet a review from another blogger about triple stuff Oreos. Get a chocolatemission review done mate. We need to see it matey. Don't you think they are going to be uber sickly with triple filling?
I had one of those medleys the other day (purple wrapper one). I thought it was ok but it wasn't anything special. One thing I was annoyed about was that there wasn't enough hob nob biscuit in there. I probably wouldn't of known it contained hob nob in it if I hadn't been made aware beforehand.
I unfortunately had the McVitie's; as described the caramel was a big let-down :(
@Michael rofl prophetic words ;)
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