Fox's Party Footballs

Product name: Fox’s Party Footballs
Purchase details: £0.49 for a 130g packet (Home Bargains)
Calories: 29 per biscuit
Country of origin: UK

Last week I realised I was running out of very low calorie biscuits so I decided it was about time Fox’s Party Rings returned to my stash. However, when I got to the shop, I couldn’t resist trying these novelty Party Footballs instead – they were even a little bit cheaper!

Aimed at young boys, these ‘iced shortcake biscuits’ came in a blue and green football-themed wrapper that contained illustrations of the product. Pleasingly, there were no artificial colours or flavours, and no preservatives, and the calorie content was the same as the standard biscuits despite these Footballs containing no holes.

I really liked the pastel colours on offer from the circular biscuits and the engraved designs on the bases were a fun additional touch. I thought the icing had been distributed in a more sloppy way than normal, but it had dripped down the sides of each biscuit nicely, and I particularly loved the shade of blue that had been used. The white stripes did make me associate the product more with basketballs than footballs but that obviously wasn’t a concern for me.

I expected everything except the appearance to be the same as Party Rings with these biscuits, but I was surprised that they had almost no smell at all. At a push, I’d say they had a slight rich tea biscuit scent, but they did lack the sugary aroma I’m familiar with.

On breaking a biscuit in two, it was clear that the icing layer remained thin against the much thicker biscuit base. I’d actually say that the shortcake felt like more of a feature than usual, providing both a crunchier and more floury texture than I remembered. However, the sugary taste hadn’t changed and, having recently tried Party Rings: Blueberry muffin, I again experimented with the sucking method. As before, this resulted in the biscuit dissolving, as well as the emergence of a juicier flavour.

All in all, these biscuits were very simple, but also very enjoyable!

Appearance: 8.5/10
Aroma: 5.5/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 7/10