ASDA: Christmas In Store Round-UP!

I was walking round ASDA today doing the usual weekly shop and spontaneously decided to do a bit of a 'round up' of the new Christmas products ASDA have already started displaying on it's shelves!

Festive Flying Saucers:

'Festive Flying Sauces £3'

Firstly, ASDA have introduced for this year these tubs of your typical pick 'n' mix sweets for the very affordable price of £3! I think these are a fantastic idea for Christmas, as many children (and adults!) have intolerances to chocolate......so these tubs serve as a fantastic alternative to the classic tubs of Celebrations or Heroes! There is a wide variety of choice with these tubs ranging from jelly sweets to marshmallows and these flying saucers!

Munchies Roll:

'Munchies £3'

Next on the list is this HUGE roll of Munchies! Now i'm a huge fan of Munchies so I can see this being added to the shopping trolley in the near future for Christmas! These rolls contain 3x100mg bags of munchies.....which is more than enough to satisfy any chocolate/caramel cravings you have this Christmas! Currently £3.

Quality Street Large Tin:

'Quality Street 1.28kg tin £8'

Next we have the 'large'(or should I say previously normal!) sized tins from Quality Street! These tins weigh in at a hefty 1.28 kg and cost £8, which is considerably different from the 'tubs' that ASDA are selling for £5 which weigh in at 780 kg. I personally have to say every year I get so disappointed at how much smaller, and smaller our tins are becoming! These tins do solve that problem, however be prepared to pay practically double the price for them!

Toblerone Triangle:

'Toblerone Triangle £2'

Toblerone have also revamped their style for Christmas with this fab looking stocking filler that anyone would be pleased to find on Christmas morning! Set in a triangle shape, with a little 'Merry Christmas' note on the packaging, I myself will be paying the very reasonable £2 price for a couple of these as little 'add on' presents for friends and family!

Quality Street Large Strawberry Delight:

Now this Christmas product is one of the ones that i'm most excited about! It's no secret that I love the 'creme' sweets from the Quality Street tins.....so when Quality Street brought out the large versions of 'The Purple One', Fudge and Toffee ones I was eagerly awaiting,with my fingers crossed, for the day that they finally brought out the Strawberry Dream ones. This is something that will definitely be making at least one appearance in my household this Christmas! Currently priced at £5.


Frozen Christmas Chocolates:

'Chocolate Snowies £1'

'Milk & White Chocolate Pieces £1'

I couldn't resist adding these to the list! These are completely adorable and would surely brighten up any little girls Christmas day if she's a Frozen fan! These two are just a small variety of the 'Frozen' chocolate options that ASDA have in for Christmas, but for the price of £1 you can't really go wrong!

Quality Street/Guylian/Heroes etc... Pouches:

For those that have no desire for the tub version of these chocolates or would just rather a smaller amount, then these pouches are ideal for you! These bags do contain around 200 kg less than the normal size tubs, but they are cheaper at £4!

Extra Special Father Christmas:

I couldn't resist adding this beauty to the round up either! Made from extra special Chocolate with a higher than average cocoa content this giant Father Christmas would be the creme de la creme of the Christmas table! Currently £15.

ASDA Christmas Baking:

I LOVE baking at Christmas time....so when I passed the baking aisle and saw that ASDA had a new 'Christmas' range of products, I had to restrain myself from doing a little jig in store!!
First up we have the 'Cake-Pop Kit'. Priced at £2....I've never made any Cake Pops before, so I may have to give these a try closer to Christmas! They look like a fun activity for the family to partake in at Christmas time!

'Cake Decorations £1-2'

ASDA have also introduced a wide range of new cake decoration products for Christmas! These are right up my street! I love baking during Christmas time....when it's freezing cold outside, but the house is filled with the warmth and the homely smell of baking! ....And what makes things even better is the exceptional price of these products! All coming in at under £3! There are a variety of products that would look and taste perfect atop a cake or a lovely yule log! These include Shimmer Snowballs (£1) Milk & White Chocolate decorations (£2), Sugar Sparkle Dust (£2) and many more!

......And it's only October! I'm pretty sure there will be another follow up post closer to Christmas with an even wider range of Christmas products! If you happen to spot anything new and exciting for Christmas then feel free to let me know!

xo

Hotel Chocolat 'You Crack Me Up Extra Thick' Easter Egg

The wonderful people at Hotel Chocolat contacted me recently asking if I would like to review one of their Easter eggs....and of course I said yes! (I would have been a fool not to, since their chocolate is to die for!)

......So when the postman delivered me a beautifully presented, gift-wrapped parcel the other day I was incredibly excited!!

'Easter 'You Crack Me Up Extra Thick' Egg'

 The description of this Easter egg on their website certainly gets the mouth watering!

'When we first started making our eggs 13 years ago, we were 

advised by experts to make them as thin as possible and put the chocolates on the outside.

 We did the opposite!

Our irresistibly upbeat extra thick Easter egg is cast in milk chocolate 

and our award-winning high-cocoa white chocolate, and inside you'll discover 

12 smiley face pralines and happy chicks.'

....with a description like that how can you say no?!?!

'Thick Easter Egg accompanied by 12 smiley face Pralines and happy Chicks'

'Cast in Milk Chocolate and our award-winning high-cocoa White Chocolate'

Hotel Chocolat are fabulous chocolatiers that have a strong ingredients philosophy to use only wholesome, real ingredients and their mantra is 'More Cocoa, Less Sugar'. 

What makes these eggs even more enticing is that they are suitable for vegetarians, and are alcohol free!

Now onto the actual egg!

After spending about 20 minutes convincing myself that this egg needed to be opened in spite of the gorgeous parcelling, I finally mustered up the courage to rip into the beautiful packaging and stopped short in shock when I came across what seemed to be a mahoosive egg-shaped lump of chocolate...

'415g/ 14.6 oz'

....Now i've never had a Hotel Chocolat egg before, and I am admittedly a bit of a pessimist. So when I read the description of this egg and saw that it was supposedly 'extra thick'....I thought 'Yeah right....it might be a tiny bit thicker than the competition on the market but it won't be amazingly thick'

Guys.....it was AMAZINGLY thick!! I have to say I am delighted to let you guys know that I was wrong, and I am pleasantly surprised with the thickness of this egg!

Aesthetically, this egg is simply fantastic! The mix of their award winning white and milk chocolate creates an eye popping 'marble' effect and gives this egg that added 'oomph' that you desire in a nice high-end egg!

'Suitable for Vegetarians'

Taste wise...the egg is even more amazing than it looks! The chocolate is creamy and smooth and melts wonderfully in the mouth. I can honestly say I have no complaints whatsoever with this egg, appearance or taste wise!

'Extra Thick Egg!...Warning! May require excessive force to dig in! ;)'

Following the mad frenzy that ensued when my family pounced on this egg....all eyes (and stomachs) turned towards the 12 delightfully cute chocolates stuffed inside the egg. These were;

'More Cocoa, Less Sugar'

Chocolate Brownie x2 : Crispy chocolate buttercream encased in milk chocolate.

Crunchy Praline x2 : Crunchy biscuit pieces and praline encased in mocha chocolate.

Milk Praline Fried Egg x2: A milk chocolate, hazelnut, praline-filled half shell, topped with a white chocolate fried egg.

Milk Chocolate Chick x2:  A flightless, fabulous chick cast in mellow and creamy 40% milk chocolate.A

White Soldiers x2: Creamy white chocolate soldiers pre-dipped with a dollop of creamy chocolate yolk.

Smooth Caramel Bow Tie Bunny x2: A dapper Easter bunny cast in smooth and sensual caramel milk chocolate.

'12 Delicious chocolates found within each egg!'

Overall, all of these mini chocolates tasted delicious and fit in nicely with the egg. My personal favourites were the Chocolate Brownie (the smoothness of the chocolate buttercream was simply divine) and the White Soldiers (the white chocolate was the best white chocolate i've ever tasted).

In Conclusion, this egg is all you could ever want or need from an Easter egg. It does come at a marginally expensive price of £28....however believe me when I say this: These eggs are well worth the cost!!

As said previously, I have never brought a Hotel Chocolat egg, this is most likely due to the price which I assume is quite a big issue for many people. However, since trying this egg I am 100% certain that I will from now on buy Hotel Chocolat eggs. Compared to the typical Dairy Milk or Malteser Easter eggs that can be brought for £5 or £10....this egg is much more upmarket, and the taste certainly matches price! This was a 'eggcellent' egg, and an even more wonderful tasting experience! 

Quality over quantity was never more true!....Their mantra of 'More Cocoa, Less Sugar' is definitely apparent in these eggs!

To buy one of these fabulous eggs (which I definitely recommend to all my fellow chocoholics!)...You can find it (and other varieties) on Hotel Chocolat's website here.

....And for offers and competitions you can follow them on twitter here or like them on facebook here.


I received this product in order to produce an honest review, and all views/opinions expressed are completely my own.

Would I buy this again? YES!....100% 

Hershey's Cookies 'N' Creme

Recently I acquired this Hershey's cookies 'n' creme flavoured chocolate bar from a friend and haven't had a chance to review it till now.

I was really quite excited to try this bar because as much as I say that I am a chocoholic...sometimes even chocoholics need some variation in their chocolate bars! So this cookie infused white chocolate bar really appealed to me yesterday!

Described quite simply on the pack as 'white chocolate with cookie bits' this bar seemed like the perfect option to appease my niggling sweet tooth!

'208 calories per 40g bar'

Opening the packet the bar looked darker than I expected. This was probably due to the amount of cookie pieces crammed inside! Split into three rows, each little chunk has the brand name 'Hershey' on it and overall this 40g bar looks very appetising! Turning it over face down, we can see just how many cookie pieces are squeezed  into this bar;

Look at all that!!

The taste of the bar however was much different from what I expected! The white chocolate was certainly very different from the Cadbury white chocolate that we're all normally used to! The taste seemed less rich and smooth than our version, and overall just seemed like a lower quality chocolate. The cookie pieces however I really enjoyed! I'm not quite sure what cookie was used but whatever type of cookie it was I would certainly buy a pack of them on their own! They reminded me of a crumblier version of Oreo's! 

 Overall, I really enjoyed this chocolate bar and upon eating it all in one sitting, scoured the internet to see where I could find one in a local supermarket and found that they can apparently be purchased in Tesco for 65p so if they are I will definitely be buying some more!

Would I buy this again? YES

NEW! *Limited Edition* Cadbury Dairy Milk 'Winter Wonderland' bar

Hi Guys!

Now if you follow me on twitter you'd know just how excited I've been to taste and review this new limited edition Cadbury bar!
After weeks of scouring the shelves in numerous local supermarkets I've FINALLY found the bar in my local Co-Op for the introductory price of £1.
Onto the pictures!

"Tree-shaped milk & white chocolate bar"

This new chocolate creation from Cadbury is a fantastic combination of both milk and white chocolate, and comes in adorable Christmas tree segments!

133 kcal per 1/4 of the bar

How amazing does that picture look?
I think this is a fantastic creation from Cadbury for Christmas this year, and I'm positive that this bar is going to do extremely well!

I will admit that at first I was apprehensive as to how the bar would be broken up and shared, as Cadbury's other new 'Marvellous Creations' bars are shaped in an assortment of different chunks and therefore are not particularly easy to divide up! However, thankfully this bar easily breaks off into nice little diagonal rows!

In terms of taste....the bar is wonderful! The chocolate tastes like the typical Cadbury Dairy Milk that we all know and love, so it's definitely got that classic creamy taste......and is very moreish!
 If I had to be critical, I would have liked a thicker layer of white chocolate on the 'white chocolate tree segments' just so there would have been a stronger taste of the creamy white chocolate...as at times it was overpowered by the milk chocolate.

Overall, this new limited edition bar from Cadbury for Christmas is a fantastic novelty product! The taste is the classic Dairy Milk chocolate that we already love so we know that it's going to taste good! The unique aspect of this bar is the shape! The concept of having these alternate chocolate Christmas tree segments is a wonderful idea for the Christmas market and is incredibly appealing to customers!
I would definitely recommend this bar to everyone...just for the simple fact that my pictures don't do this bar justice! It's an amazing Christmas treat....and even if it's out a little early for Christmas it's fantastic to share with the family!

Would I buy this again? 100% YES

Cadbury 'Pots of Joy'

Hi Guys!

Sorry for the long wait between posts, I was in a car accident last week so I've been recovering since then but I'm feeling better this week!
Since I've been a bit incapacitated this week my amazingly wonderful friend brought over my favourite treat at this moment in time: Cadbury Pots of Joy!

These little 'pots of joy' have literally become my saviour in the past few weeks if I'm in need of a little sweet treat to keep me going, or something small to snack on!
You can get these little 'pots' in packs of 2 and 4, each little pot is 70g and contains 160 calories. When first introduced the 4 packs were priced at £1.....but in ASDA (due to popular demand!) they are now priced at £2.
Many people have commented on the size of the pots, mentioning that they may be too small and that there's not enough in each pot to fill them up, but personally I love the size! I think they are perfect for both children as a small snack after school or dinner, and are perfect for adults as a quick snack on the go!

When I first came across these little pots I was automatically drawn to the 'white chocolate buttons' flavour. Described as a "smooth and creamy dessert made with melted Cadbury white chocolate and whipping cream for maximum smoothness"
My first thought/impression, would be that the pots might look and taste more like a mousse, but on first taste the dessert is smooth and rich in texture, and is 100% the best yoghurt/dessert I've ever had.
 Taste wise, I was extremely surprised. I thought the taste wouldn't be as creamy as described and might have a more vanilla essence to it, however the dessert does literally taste like creamy, melted white chocolate and it was absolutely delicious! 

The taste is extremely sweet, but the small size of the pots means that you're not eating too much and therefore are not left with the slightly 'sickly' feeling you can sometimes get with sweet tasting products.
Overall, I absolutely love the creamy white chocolate taste of these little pots and the smoothness and silkiness of them makes them taste divine, yes the pots are quite small at 70g but I love the size of them.

Would I buy this again? YES.