June 2nd: Heavenly Cakes British Bakewell / Sovereign Shortbread

There's a good chance that 2012 is going to go down as the proudest year in British history. with us celebrating the Queen's Diamond Jubilee this weekend and of course the Summer Olympics starting in just a few weeks time. Suffice to say the country is feeling rather good about itself at the moment and there is many a celebration being had up and down the land. I myself will attending a few parties this weekend and no doubt will be raising a glass of swift sherry and burnt banger to our dear Ma'am. Of course I wont be able to turn up at these parties without taking my own contribution to the gathering. Not wanting to be boring and show up with something anyone could have bought from their local supermarket, I thought that this sounded like a job for Heavenly Cakes. Take a look at what they sent across:

Heavenly Cakes British Bakewell

Ladies and Gentlemen I don't like Bakewell Tarts - not even the ones by the daddy himself Mr Kipling. They aren't something I have bought in years, but from memory having them as a kid I just remember them being overly sugary and sickeningly sweet. Suffice to say I really wasn't all that excited by this cake but it managed to exceed expectations and then some. What impressed me first was the look of the cake when I finally negotiate unwrapping it from it's uber sticky wrapper. It looked fantastic with the layers of cake, almond topping, jam and pastry base clearly defined and smelling incredibly fresh. The aromas reminded me of lovely hot croissants so it was no surprise that the taste reminded me of them also. Indeed biting into the cake all memories of Bakewell cakes being sweet and sickly disappeared as I was confronted by a delicious array of golden pastry, buttery nut, vanilla sponge and red fruit flavours.The variety and dexterity of the taste was just fantastic and all these different elements were delivered within a wide range of different textures. There was stickyness, there was crispy pastry and there was moist and light cake, it was just wonderful. I savored every bite of this cake, thank goodness the Heavemly Cakes guys were kind enough to send me a lot of samples. If I only had a few I don't think they would have made it to this weekends parties.

8.8 out of 10

Heavenly Cakes Sovereign Shortbread

Whilst I believe the British Bakewell is going to be available all year round (and so it should be!!), I think I'm right in saying that this Sovereign Shortbread has been specifically created to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee this weekend. This Sovereign Shortbread is essentially Heavenly's Chocolate Shortbread but with a little British twist with the addition of a milk chocolate crown shape at it's centre. Knowing just had good my friend @BettyBakes is with her shortbread I was expectant of good things and Heavenly Cakes being Heavenly Cakes didn't let me down. The biscuit was epically crumbly, and melted in the mouth like butter - a mouth feel entirely suitable given the taste. Indeed the biscuit was just incredible with underlying butter biscuit shortcake flavours complimented expertly with finely balanced elements of sugar and salt. Eating around the middle crown shaped piece it meant I saved the best until very last and the remaining few bites were just utter bliss with the addition of the creamy milk chocolate to the party. Real, bakery fresh biscuits just don't get better than this.

8.3 out of 10

Overall both were superb tasting cakes from Heavenly and part of me can't wait to take them to the parties this weekend to see what everyone makes of them. The other part of me wants to hoard them all to myself but that wouldn't be much in the spirit of British communal cheer now would it :-D I will give an update in a few days to let you know how well these were received.

June 1st: Hotel Chocolat Dark Costa Rican Coffee Selector

I'm sure you will all be glad to hear that Hotel Chocolat have sent across my latest sampling package containing all manner of Summer and Jubilee themed chocolates for 2012. In the coming weeks I will be giving you all the JCM scoop on those new products, however today the focus will be on one of their all year round available 'selector products'. Indeed hogging the spotlight today we have these Dark Costa Rican Coffee beans - 'Whole roasted Peaberry coffee beans sealed within dark chocolate'. Being both a coffee and dark chocolate lover I couldn't have been more excited to try these out.

As I mostly get sent my Hotel Chocolat goodies as samples I often miss out on providing you guys with the pricing information but today I couldn't help but take notice. Looking on the website one of these 100.0g packs costs only £3.50 - as you will come to learn from the enjoyment I got out of these I thought they were outstanding value, especially given the quality of the ingredients.

Before I start lavishing the praise out again I will briefly speak of the one negative which I thought was the presentation. I've commented on this before with this type of packaging but I think it's worth making mentioning again that the plastic packet/tray combo is not something I think stands up for either the Hotel Chocolat brand or their products. Packaging snobbery aside :-) these were otherwise glorious. First off they smelt amazing. The coffee and cocoa scents that overcame my senses once the plastic packet seal was broken were just drool worthy and from my first handful I was hooked. The dark chocolate was just the right strength (I would guess 70% cocoa) and the rich, earthy, chocolatey cocoa flavours grew beautifully in their intensity as I let them slowly melt away on my tongue. Once the chocolate had melted away it was time to get munching on the remaining coffee beans and boy were they equally as great! They were fresh, crunchy and provided the most delicious rich roasted coffee flavours - the small caffeine buzz they provided was an added bonus for my mid-afternoon coffee and snack.

Overall after reading the above I'm sure you become well aware that I absolutely loved these. Casting my thoughts about the packaging style aside I thought these were just wonderful. I don't for one minute think they will change anyone's opinions on coffee flavoured chocolates if they don't like them, but for the rest who sit in my camp of loving them I have no doubt you will get some serious enjoyment from them. As with all Hotel Chocolat products I never had any fear about the quality of the chocolate - it was up to it's usual standard here and the strength chosen really suited the coffee beans it coated. The coffee beans themselves also lived up to the standard of the chocolate and as suggested by the product description they were evidently carefully chosen for their depth of flavour and quality. Coffee chocolate fans get involved! You wont regret it.

8.9 out of 10

   

May 30th: Bits & Bobs Misc 2012 # 1

Bits & Bobs is the order of the day so as usual these reviews will all be short and sweet. Enjoy the pictures and please use the Jim's ChocolateMission Pinterest (HERE) and @Chocmission Twitter feeds (HERE) to give me your own thoughts on any of the products featured today.
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Milka Loffel Ei Chocolate Cream

Kcal 570 Fat 37.0g Carbs 53.0g (per 100.0g)

Easter may be long gone but JCM reader Catherine insisted that I try these chocolate cream flavoured Milka Loffel Ei eggs after she sampled them on holiday in Germany earlier this year. Indeed Catherine enjoyed them so much she brought me back my own pack of four (136.0g) and was kind enough to send them long to me. These eggs were essentially the same as the original Milka Loffel Ei (review HERE) apart from the obvious substitution of the milk flavoured creme with the chocolate one. When I say the same I literally mean the same! Even three years on since trying the original cream eggs the packaging and presentation was entirely consistent with each egg foil wrapped and accompanied by a cute little spoon for the inner cream. Now, to the all important taste test and unfortunately I have to report that I didn't quite think theses stacked up against the milk cream ones. The inner cream was pleasant and accentuated the creamy sweet flavours of the Milka milk chocolate, but it didn't have the creamy qualities of the aforementioned originals. I still really enjoyed these but given the option between the milk cream or the chocolate cream Loffel Ei I would have to go with the milk ones.

8.0 out of 10

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Kellogg's All Bran Chocolate Breakfast Biscuits

Kcal 167 Fat 6.0g Fat(sats) 2.0g Carbs 21.0g (per 40.0g)

One of the most common questions I'm forever being e-mailed about is 'is this (insert dodgy brand name X here!) healthy chocolate good for me!??'. Ninety-nine times out of one-hundred I politely respond back with an e-mail pointing out the ridiculousness of the question. Yes, a sensible amount is of course good for you, it will make you happy and to me at least that's a good and healthy thing! On the other hand, consuming ten tons of the stuff is not going to be a good thing for any of us - not at least for our waistlines. What I often do out of courtesy is point people in the direction of some of the 'healthier' chocolate flavoured alternative products I've tried down the years. Falling nicely into that very category today are these new Kellogg's All Bran Chocolate Breakfast Biscuits. I found these a few weeks ago in Tesco priced at a rather expensive sounding £2.39 (6 bar multi-pack) and promising 'bran enriched wheat and oat fibre cereal bars with chocolate chips'. I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that these are going to be your 'chocolate heaven; the bran cereal is certainly the dominant element of the taste, but the chocolate chips do bring a chocolatey influence to pretty much every bite. Like I said, chocolate heaven maybe not, but as a healthier alternative these are certainly more satisfying than many of the lighter weight sugar intensive chocolate cereal bars out there. Give them a try and tell me what you think.

7.1 out of 10

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Nestle Aero Biscuits Mint

Kcal 99 Fat 5.4g Fat(sats) 3.1g Carbs 11.2g (per biscuit bar)

I've commented a few times in the last year about the recent explosion of new Aero products we've seen released here in the UK. Lambs, dark chocolates, reappearing orange bars ... you name Aero have done it recently! Though a lot of these have been re-released or repackaged old products one of the more innovative creations of late has been their venture into the chocolate biscuit aisle. April 2011 I gave you my views on the first product from this very range - See HERE. Twelve months on Aero have seen fit to add some more of their flavours to the chocolate biscuit aisle, one of which is this new mint variety. These mint bars are available in multipacks of seven, and yes of course cost me the token £1.00 on offer in my local supermarket. Packaging and presentation wise these maintained a lot of consistency from the standard Aero range. One thought I did have is that is thought they look attractive enough they might not be too similar looking to the normal Aero bars!? Perhaps a little more could be made of the 'Biscuit' element in this sense ... just a thought!? Minor concerns over the wrappers aside when it came to the taste test I was duly impressed. The long finger pieces made for a comfortable two bites with the extra golden biscuit pieces lining the base adding minor enhancements to both the taste and texture with an element of shortbread crunch.As expected the milk chocolate and mint taste was standard Aero fair - sweet and milky with a friendly, non-threatening peppermint coolness. I know that chocolate biscuit products are traditionally smaller but I could have done with these being a little larger; one can only suspect they were this small to keep below the 99 calorie glass ceiling. To summise I would happily recommend these to mint chocolate biscuit fans. Not all that satisfying but they are hardly going to damage you in the pocket.

7.7 out of 10

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ION Break Milk Chocolate

Kcal 234 Fat 14.0g Fat(sats) 9.0g Carbs 23.0g (per 42.5g serving) 

ION!?? Who!? What!? Where!? Allow Wiki to do the honours ...

"Ion is a Greek chocolate brand. Although the first chocolate recipe has been manufactured since 1927, the company was formally incorporated in 1930. The main factory is located in Athens and they are best known for their almond milk chocolate variety. The company has grown to be one of Greece’s 50 largest companies with annual sales of over €100 million."

Hands-up if you had heard of them before reading this ... no ... me neither!!! My ION education started when I came across this chocolate in my local Tesco supermarket. When I first saw it my immediate thought was that this as a new 'knock-off' Ritter Sport brand as the packaging and presentation of the bar was deeply reminiscent of the German brand with it's square shape and plastic foil wrapper. Indeed, just like any Ritter bar the chocolate was segregated into a 4x4 block grid and broke with ease. This was simply ION's milk chocolate variety and was a 29.0% cocoa recipe. The aromas emanating from the chocolate were highly indicative of the taste that followed with strong vanilla scents forthcoming from the outset. The flavour and melt development of the chocolate was ultimately sound. It had a nice enough paced melt and the taste progressed from a mild, friendly sugary cocoa base, to an aftertaste most notable for it's aforementioned vanilla influence. At the end of the day, this was hardly a chocolate that set my world on fire but at the same time I can see why it's probably universally liked in Greece. It's not a chocolate you need to search out as a must try, but if your curious to try some Greek chocolate then I would suggest it as a nice enough one to start with. 

7.2 out of 10

May 28th: Hotel Chocolat Jubilee Selection

Since 1952 - no that's not how long Hotel Chocolat have been making excellent chocolates, but rather it's the year of coronation for the nations' favorite nanny! Yes indeed it's Jubilee time this weekend folks, you wouldn't have guessed it huh ;-) I maybe sounding a little cynical there and I don't mean to be! What isn't to love about this weekend!? We have four days to have time off work, fine food and drink, national cheer and dare I tempt fate by saying some nice weather :-D It's going to be great, but we all know though that no celebration is complete without a box of chocolates! Cometh the coronation celebration, cometh the Hotel Chocolat Jubilee Selection!!! Guess who got to give it a try.

The Hotel Chocolat Jubilee Selection is a 195.0g collection featuring 20 individual chocolates. Just as I expected the presentation of this Limited Edition was first class and the uniquely styled round shaped, ribbon decorated box caught the eye with it's attractive curves and well presented chocolates placed inside. As you can see above and below the 'Old Man' dusted his camera down for this one and went snap happy with some excellent looking photos. Here are our thoughts on the eight chocolate varieties inside:

Raspberry Liqueur Truffle - This showcased HC's fine talents with fruit flavoured chocolates brilliantly combining a dark chocolate outer shell with a creamy, red berry infused, boozie white chocolate centre. The alcohol hit was superbly balanced in this one and even brought a small warmth to the party. Very Good.

Salted Soft Caramel - Just sensational, I needn't say more - See previous review HERE

Raspberry & Hibiscus - This was another new one we hadn't tried before and it came with an 'Academy of Chocolate Gold Winner 2012' certification. This chocolate was essentially the same as the   raspberry liqueur truffle above, but rather had an even fruitier emphasis and a sweeter floral note to it rather than a boozie focus. Again I loved it - as did my mother. Very Good.

Simple Milk Truffle - Simple ... Yes! Delicious .... Yes! See previous review HERE

Cherry Bombe - Cherry flavoured chocolates can often be awfully fake tasting but HC proved that their skills with raspberrys and strawberrys also carry over to this other sweet red fruit. Indeed this milk chocolate contained a very tasty, creamy cherry flavoured white flavoured ganache filling. It was soft in texture, but bold and 'real' tasting flavour wise. Very Good.

Classic Whisky Truffle - The 'Old Man's favourites! I didn't get a sniff of these but he said they were the usual high standard. See previous review HERE

Dizzy Praline - It wouldn't be a Hotel Chocolat selection box without a praline chocolate in there. Suffice to say usual high standards were consistent - See previous review HERE.

Eton Mess - The star attraction - fit for the Queen herself! It's the fourth year I've been reviewing this chocolate and it still remains in my opinion one of their finest. White chocolate, strawberry buttercream, meringue and real strawberry pieces. Still as epic as ever! See previous review HERE.


Overall this collection was everything it should have been and that's a celebration of the things that Hotel Chocolat do best. Fruit chocolates ... check, caramels .... check, liqueurs .... check, Eton Mess .... check :-D you get the picture! If you were going to put a selection of the best truffles that Hotel Chocolat do, and put them in all one box you find it hard to craft a better mix than the one on offer here. At £25.00 you are paying over £1.00 per chocolate and normally that would be hard to justify. Frankly though, the Queen's Diamond Jubilee only comes around once in our lifetime and if we are going to celebrate we might aswell all do it properly. If your buying a box of chocolates for the occasion (of course you will be!!) then you needn't look past this option here. Diamond quality for a Diamond weekend!

9.2 out of 10

May 25th: Berry Temptation Jubilee Edition

Back in April Berry Temptation made their first ever appearance on Chocolate Mission when I reviewed their delightful Classic Temptation Collection - See HERE. Since that time I've heard from many a satisfied reader who took on my recommendation and bought some of their chocolate dipped strawberries for all sorts of different occasions (one reader even told me they bought them for a colleague's leaving do when they were fully aware they were allergic to red berrys - haha any excuse huh!?). Well having tried their more general, classic offering, Berry Temptation recently got back in contact offering me the chance to try these newly created Jubilee Edition strawberries - do you think there was ever a possibility I was going to say no :-)

The box I received from Berry Temptation included 16 pristine looking strawberries and came with the descriptor of - '16 Hand dipped chocolate strawberries with a patriotic makeover of the Union Jack flag to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee, and Olympic season'. Now I'm sure we've all started picking up on the sheer amount of British flag coloured products and wrappers in around our shops at the moment, but these were something special. These strawberries stood out as looking tremendously impressive and they really did look like someone had gone to extreme effort to hand decorate them as nicely as possible. On all 16 chocolates the care that had been taken was obvious to see and I hope my photos do the quality justice - my family and I were very impressed anyway.

This was one of one of those situations where eating the first one from the box almost 'felt wrong', as the collection looked so pretty with all the cute strawberries lined up with their pretty flags on show. Guilt was not a feeling that lasted long though :-) within seconds of tucking into the box we were all preoccupied with how delightful they tasted and we were soon swapping opinions and arguing over whether it was the freshness of the strawberries or the tastyness of the chocolate that made them so appealing. As always I'll sit on the fence and say it was the combination of the two that made these so terrific haha! Indeed, if you ask me the juicy, sweet, zingy flavours of the fruit were every bit as nice as the smooth melting, creamy, sweet tasting milk chocolate. Between four of us the box lasted just the one day - our excuse being they were fresh produce so we had to eat them when in their peak to write a fair review of course it was ;-)

Overall I have to send another big thumbs up in the direction of Berry Temptation for these. As I stated earlier in the review, there aren't going to be a shortage of these British themed products doing the rounds at the moment, however these stood out as being something just a little special. The effort that had gone into the design work on the strawberries was very obvious and these came across as having had a lot more thought put into them rather than just a lazy British colour scheme implemented on a wrapper. Come Jubilee party time I think these would be a fantastic product to have as a center piece sweet nibble platter - I'm sure they would raise a fair few eyebrows with impressed guests. Fingers crossed we are in for a fantastic summer full of British celebrations and summer sun. Why not make your festivities all that bit more special with a box of these!?

8.4 out of 10

May 23rd: Lindt Excellence Milk with a touch of Sea Salt

Kcal ??? Fat ??? Fat(sats) ??? Carbs ???

As showcased previously this year, Lindt have released a fair few new bars to their Excellence portfolio - see Wasabi & Coconut Intense flavours HERE. This latest addition to the Lindt Excellence milk chocolate range was one that I found on sale in my local Tesco supermarket, and it came described as 'Excellence milk with a touch of sea salt'. Given previous experience with Lindt and their salt enhanced chocolates, this was one I thought had a great deal of promise.

This 100.0g bar cost me in the region of £1.50 which I thought was reasonable given the expected quality that I hoped with follow. The packaging style was aligned to everything I had come across before with the Excellence range. It was modern, sleek and ultimately very classy looking - I've always thought Lindt's Excellence chocolates have been stunningly well presented. Aroma wise the bar smelt none to dissimilar to any other of the Lindt milk chocolates I had reviewed previous, with it's dairy focused, sweet cocoa smells coming quickly to the fore.

Following my taste test I'm pleased to report that this chocolate not only met, but managed to exceed my considerably high expectation levels. In my opinion, this new Milk with a touch of Sea Salt flavour built on all the glorious attributes of the Lindt Excellence Milk Extra Creamy, and introduced a further level of flavour depth with a deliciously moreish added salt lick. This chocolate had an impressively smooth development of flavours, moving from a light and crisp milky starer-base, to a more full-on, richer cream fueled experience with a salt hinted aftertaste. All this developed within what was a epically smooth, free-flowing melt - the mouth feel was as luxurious as ever with Lindt chocolates.

Overall you can probably tell I was very satisfied with this chocolate and it was one that I instantly fell in love with. I expected nothing less from the indications given by the packaging, presentation etc but even I didn't expect this bar to taste quite as heavenly as it did. The matching of the salt, with the sweeter, high quality milk chocolate was a synergy that I thought worked extremely well. As you will have likely of noted from my many reviews on chocolates with peanuts in, the addition of salt to chocolate is something I'm very fond of and this certainly only strengthened my opinion that it can only be a good thing. The taste was multi-dimensional and the texture was soft as silk and well paced - I literally have no complaints in these regards. This was certainly one of the best chocolates I've got around to reviewing this year and I can't recommend it enough. Milk chocolate fans owe it to themselves to try this one out.

9.0 out of 10

May 21st: AmericanSoda Super Post - May 2012

The guys over at AmericanSoda have been busy updating their stock with some of the newest snacks available in the US. What with every product currently on sale here in the UK now being draped in Union Jack packaging, it was certainly nice to be able to try some products sourced a little further away from home. Here are my thoughts on some of the products I've recently been treated to by @AmericanSoda

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Jelly Belly Chocolate Dips - Coconut

Kcal 150 Fat 4.0g Fat 2.5g Carbs 31.0g (per 40.0g serving)

Colour me confused people! I did a little background research on these *New* Jelly Belly Chocolate Dips and it appears that aren't all that new it seems. In fact, looking at this review by Rosa over at ZomgCandy (See HERE), it would appear that these have been around for a fair few years already. One can only assume that Jelly Belly are alluding to this particular format being new, and not the actual product!? Whatever I was the lucky receiver of these coconut flavoured Jelly Belly Chocolate Dips which I got sent in an 80.0g pack (supposedly two servings!). What with all the chocolate I have to try for the site, I don't often eat many other sugary snacks, thus it had been a while since I last had Jelly Beans. Well this all changed last week when I tried out these 'coconut flavoured Jelly Belly beans coated in dark chocolate', and I'm happy to say it was favourable reunion. To be honest I wasn't expecting much from the chocolate and it came to my pleasant surprise that it wasn't half bad. The melt was perhaps a little slow initiating, however once the glazing agent had diminished it was all upwards from there and each mouthful of jelly beans at least started with a pleasant, unsweetened chocolate flavour hit. If anything it was actually the Jelly Beans themselves that were a little bit under-powered and not as strong as I wanted. The sweet coconut flavours did come through once the beans were chewed, though it was the chocolate I found myself appreciating more and it was certainly the longer sustained influence on the taste. I'm certainly very keen to try some more of the other flavours Jelly Belly have to offer - would it be too much to ask for a chocolate dipped mixed variety!?


7.3 out of 10

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Kellogg's Pop Tarts Frosted Chocolate Fudge

Kcal 200 Fat 5.0g Fat(sats) 1.5g Carbs 37.0g (per pastry)

It wouldn't be a real AmericanSoda super post without the standard Pop Tarts review now would it!? I think I must have tried in the region of twenty different flavours now - some great, some bad, some indifferent (you can see all my previous reviews HERE). The flavour on offer to me this time around were these Pop Tarts Frosted Chocolate Fudge - a flavour I had been a little hesitant to try previously as I believed they would just be the same as our British made Chocotastic flavour (See HERE). This preconception was born out of the fact that every photo I had seen of these Chocolate Fudge pastries looked identical to the Pop Tarts I had eaten so often as a nipper. When I received these in person I saw first hand that this wasn't an inaccurate observation. Indeed they looked no different at all to our UK chocolate ones so it was at this point I just knew I had to do a side-by-side comparison taste test. The result of this was that I found myself favouring the American ones! Trust me my research was thorough, and I tried them toasted, frozen and ultimately my favourite method of straight from the packet. The main difference between the two was that the pastry on the American Chocolate Fudge wasn't quite so dominant as the one used in the UK ones. It was lighter in texture and had a crumblier biscuit like mouth feel that didn't feel like every last drop of moisture was being sucked away when enjoyed at room temperature. This lower emphasis on the pastry made the chocolate flavours come through stronger and thankfully they seemed more chocolatey and creamy than the over powering sugary experience I expected. As you know I don't like to promote these as an everyday food stuff but as a nice treat to have from time-to-time I would happily suggest them as a fun, adaptable chocolatey option.

7.6 out of 10

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Snyder's Honey Mustard & Onion Pretzel Pieces

Kcal 140 Fat 7.0g Fat(sats) 3.0g Carbs 18.0g (per 28.0g serving)

Since starting this website many a reader has asked me whether I felt like broadening my reviews across other types of snacks and I've always given the same answer that it was 'unlikely'. I've maintained that stance for the sole reason that I find it difficult enough keeping you all up-to-date on everything in the chocosphere - opening the site up further would no doubt make the site an insurmountable task if I wanted to ensure I was providing the latest cutting edge content. As a bit of a compromise I've decided to start dropping in a few other savoury snack features when I come across something I really like. There will no scores, no graphs ... just a few words on what it is and in hopefully most cases where to buy it.

.... which bring me nicely to today's little feature - these Snyder's Honey Mustard & Pretzel Pieces. I got these as a little courtesy gift from guess who AmericanSoda. Indeed this curious little pack of pretzels made it's way into my latest sampling pack and despite my initial skepticism I can ashamedly say I'm now hooked on them. The combination of the sweet honey and slightly mouth warming roast red onion flavours make an incredibly moreish salty snack.The mustard element isn't particularly spicy or hot like our English yellow stuff - these had more of a milder Dijon, vinegary type influence to them.  I thought these were very good and I was disappointed to find that my bag emptied so quickly - I'm certainly keen as mustard (haha!) to try more of the Snyder's range. These get a definite JCM savoury snack thumbs up!

May 18th: Oreo Triple Double

Kcal 100 Fat 4.5g Fat(sats) 1.5g Carbs 15.0g (per cookie)

If you're a frequent Chocolate Mission visitor you will be well aware that Oreos are one of favoured brands of cookies. Unfortunately you will also likely be aware that Oreos are rather limited when it comes to the size of the range and availability here in the UK. It's frustratingly an all to common experience that I log on to one of my fellow US bloggers site (The Impulsive Buy for instance!) and see the likes of Marvo fawning over the latest Nabisco creation. Admittedly recently those instances have been becoming fewer and further between thanks to my pals at AmericanSoda, who for the couple of months have been doing a splendid job satisfying my American snack cravings. To my great excitement one of the last products they sent across were these Oreo Triple Double - that's double stuffed, triple sandwiched Oreos.

AmericanSoda sent these to me in a 371.0g pack that I would guess contained around 18 or so cookies. At 100 calories for just a single cookie, I can't imagine these will be making the diet of any weight watchers personnel any time soon but frankly I would of thought that was self explanatory from the product proposition anyway. Packaging and presentation wise the product was impressive. The packet had a handy resealable tab to ensure the cookies were kept in a decent fresh shape from the time they were first opened. Additionally the cookies themselves looked rather impressive, with the white vanilla and dark cremes providing a nice contrast of colours.

 Assuming this review makes it to publication not long after March you will be aware that I tried these not too far departed from my experience with the Limited Edition Birthday Cake Oreos (See HERE). As you can tell from my scoring of those ones (9.0 out of 10) I thought those were a super special edition of Oreo cookies so living up to them was always going to be somewhat difficult. Indeed, at the end of the day these double stuff, triple cookie layered beasts weren't quite as tasty or variable in terms of flavour depth, but this by no means meant they were bad cookies. These were really not that different from original Oreos apart from the fact they were much larger and satisfying. The same cocoa noted sugary biscuit flavoures and vanilla icing elements were the key focal points of the flavour journey. There is really very little additional analysis to add apart from that when separated the chocolatey creme layer had an ever so slightly creamier taste compared to the sweeter vanilla creme.

Overall these were fundamentally great tasting Oreo cookies - I wasn't expecting anything else. The 'Triple Double' concept is probably more of a gimmick than it is meant to be a groundbreaking creation. I wouldn't of thought I will have been the first person to ever 'unscrew' the original size Oreos and stack them on top of each other, thus creating a DIY Triple Double. I guess the minor advantage you have with these is that you get the original Oreo and chocolate creme Oreo experience all in one thanks to the cremes being mixed. Whether or not this is worth paying a little extra for as opposed to doing it yourself is up to you. I would suggest not for my European readers as they are probably best served saving their pennies/cents :D for the more differentiated flavour varieties such as the Double Mint. Thumbs up again for Nabisco here, but perhaps not a variety of Oreo I would regard as an essential must try.

8.4 out of 10

May 16th: Midweek Mini: Cadbury Mini Rolls Strawberry & Blueberry

Kcal 125 Fat 5.5g Fat(sats) 2.8g Carbs 17.0g (per mini roll)

It's probably not a good sign when I say that I'm already sick to death of seeing everything and anything getting repackaged into British themed wrappers. If you think I'm over exaggerating take a look at the the supermarket shelves next time you go shopping - it's a sea of red, white and blue and in my opinion it's all very counter productive. Think about it ... the packaging of all these items has been changed to disrupt the norm, catch the eyes of the shopper and ultimately STAND OUT! Well if anything I would say this new critical mass of red, white and blue is creating supermarket wallpaper, with everything blending in to one ghastly, gaudy blob of British patriotism :-D ... is this not the exact opposite of what all these manufactures were intending!?

.... Okkkkk rant over! Sorry! It's time to get down to business and today I got to try out these new 'Special Edition' Strawberry and Blueberry flavoured Cadbury Mini Rolls. I bought these in my local Tesco where quelle surprise they were running off an introductory £1.00 offer. 'Golden sponge with strawberry jam and a blueberry flavoured filling, covered in milk chocolate'. Expectations weren't sky high given that the original Cadbury Mini Rolls Strawberry (See HERE) are my least favourite of the entire Mini Rolls range, however the interesting addition of the blueberry was enough to see my part with the meager investment necessary.

Upon opening the plastic film wrapper (enough said about that already I feel haha!) the smells that emanated were highly reminiscent of the strawberry Mini Rolls which had me a little worried that the blueberry was going to be a non-factor. Thankfully my first mouthful revealed otherwise and to my pleasure it a far greater experience than I previously expected. Indeed the milk chocolate, sponge and cream layers were consistent from previous incarnations and produced a familiar sweet milk chocolate cakey taste that was nice for it's density and flavour strength. Running through the middle of the roll the filling for me had a nicer influence on the cake and the usual sweet as sugar strawberry jam had an element of sharper plum like fruitiness to it. Overall I thought these Mini Rolls were just a whole lot more bearable than the Strawberry solus ones which I normally find are way too much on the sweet side of the tracks for my taste. I'm not sure I would buy them again but I wouldn't like to put any of you off trying them as they are certainly worth a look at.

7.3 out of 10