BN Vanilla

Product name: BN Vanilla
Purchase details: Tesco Superstore
Calories: 87 per biscuit
Country of origin: France 

Following my recent review of BN Chocolate, I’ve finally started to eat my packet of BN Vanilla biscuits too. Again, I can’t remember what price I paid for this product, but the figure £1.49 rings a bell. According to Tesco's website, though, they’re currently on offer for £1.00.

The Vanilla version of BN were the same in appearance as the Chocolate variety but had a blue wrapper instead of a brown one which, combined with the green border, invoked thoughts of sky, trees and grass.

Each ‘vanilla flavour sandwich biscuit’ was the same in appearance as BN Chocolate (with differing facial expressions) but with a white filling. I found this to be such a contrast with the biscuits’ colour that it looked like the smiling faces had been on holiday and come back with a tan! The biscuits were identical to the ones used in the Chocolate version, though, with the same ingredients used. Thankfully, this 295g packet had also suffered fewer breakages.

As expected, the biscuits emitted the same cracker-like smell, and I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t detect a vanilla scent.

Again, the biscuits were identical in flavour to the ones I described in my BN Chocolate review but, this time, I found the filling worked better – probably because it was sweeter than the biscuits so distracted from the unusual biscuit taste! The centres were quite like icing sugar in flavour but the vanilla element was also noticeable. Overall, it felt a bit like I was eating giant custard creams with a far crispier texture.

I found these BN Vanilla biscuits to be surprisingly enjoyable but, as far as recommendations go, it definitely helps if you have a sweet tooth. 

Appearance: 8.5/10
Aroma: 6/10
Taste: 8/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 7.38/10

BN Chocolate

Product name: BN Chocolate
Purchase details: tesco.com
Calories: 86 per biscuit
Country of origin: France 

It’s been over two months since my review of BN Mini: Strawberry but I’ve finally got round to opening my packet of BN Chocolate. I can’t actually remember how much I paid for this substantial 295g packet but I seem to remember them being on offer at the time - I think they were actually the £1.00 that they're currently available for.

These ‘chocolate flavour’ sandwich biscuits came in the square BN shape I was more familiar with. The wrapper was brown and green which I associated with mud and grass – whether or not this was intentional, I’m not sure!

These happy-faced biscuits boasted ‘no artificial colours or flavours’ and, I thought, looked more like crackers due to their grainy appearance. Interestingly the main ingredient was listed as ‘cereals’, consisting of wheat flour and wholemeal wheat, rye and barley flours. They even smelt like crackers and, whilst this wasn’t an unpleasant smell, it didn’t seem right for the product as it made me expect a salty or savoury taste.

Despite the packaging containing cardboard for protection, quite a few of my biscuits had broken corners. However, this didn’t distract too much from the attention to detail demonstrated by the different expressions on the biscuits’ faces, as well as the BN logo on their bases.

The chocolatey cream appeared to have a compressed powdery texture and filled up a large square area between the biscuit layers. Unfortunately, this didn’t add to the aroma, but it did provide quite a strong chocolatey and sugary taste. It was actually quite bitter and, texturally, it was slightly dry and crumbly.

The biscuits didn’t taste at all how I remembered them and I found them to be very similar to Hovis biscuits, but a lot sweeter. I guess, then, they were digestive-like but with a floury element, and they were also very crispy.

Combined, the two flavours worked well together and had a nice texture – I was just surprised that the main sweetness came from the biscuit rather than the chocolate. What shocked me even more was that I think I actually enjoyed BN Chocolate more on this occasion than I did when I was a child! 

Appearance: 8/10
Aroma: 6/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 7.13/10

BN Mini: Strawberry

Product name: BN Mini: Strawberry
Purchase details: tesco.com
Calories: 30 per biscuit (180 per pack of six)
Country of origin: France

I have a confession to make: I’m of the generation who, when they hear the tune to Mahna Mahna, automatically change the lyrics to ‘BN BN’. In fact, once it’s in my head, it tends to stay there so it was clearly a good advertising campaign back in the day.

Produced by United Biscuits, BNs are essentially sandwich biscuits with the USP being that the top biscuit has pieces cut out to make them look like different faces. As a kid, I loved the novelty of this idea, but I only had the opportunity to try them a couple of times. Having said that, I remember that I didn’t absolutely love their taste, so I didn’t see this as a particularly negative thing. However, absence makes the heart grow fonder, so when these biscuits returned to the UK earlier this year following a 10 year gap, I couldn’t resist reliving my childhood.

Currently, the standard chocolate and vanilla varieties of this product are sitting unopened in my stash, and so the first of my reviews is of BN Mini: Strawberry – a version I hadn’t actually tried previously. I ordered these a while ago so I’m afraid I don’t remember how much I paid for them but they are currently £1.69 on Tesco's website which is where I originally bought them from.

This fun-looking box contained 30 biscuits that were divided into five snack packs. Unlike the more common BN biscuit, these were circular in shape, rather than square, and they were obviously also a lot smaller than the original. However, they still consisted of a variety of smiling faces, and I just loved this attention to detail. Each biscuit also had ‘BN’ imprinted on the back, just in case you couldn’t remember what you were eating!

The vivid red colour that was visible through each golden biscuit’s eyes and mouth was the ‘strawberry flavour filling’ which had a slightly artificial but very fruity smell. This did remind me of something, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. What I really wanted to do was take a picture of the inside of a biscuit, but I soon discovered that this was an impossibility. The filling was so unbelievably sticky that, despite several attempts, I could not separate the biscuit layers without breakage. In the end, I resorted to cutting through the middle with a knife, which promptly got stuck (as my picture shows!). This did make me wonder exactly what the product would do to my teeth and insides, but it wasn’t going to stop me trying them! I also noticed that this filling didn’t reach all the way to the edges of the biscuit, as suggested on the box’s picture, but this was probably a good thing, all things considered.

Despite my initial fears, I was pleased to discover that whilst the strawberry flavoured filling was stiff and chewy, it was nicely balanced by the larger proportion of biscuits which had a soft crunch to them. I also discovered that it was possible to suck these biscuits as they were just about small enough to fit in the mouth comfortably. When eating them in this way, the biscuit layers gradually softened and dissolved, leaving the disc of filling behind which could either be sucked or chewed. However, eating the biscuits in this way was hard work so I would certainly opt for chewing over sucking, on the whole!

I think it’s safe to say that Jammie Dodgers are the nearest British biscuits we have to BN Mini: Strawberry. However, these BNs did taste very different. The biscuits were sweeter and texturally different to Jammie Dodgers, and the strawberry filling, whilst sweet and fruity, was also very tangy and, combined with the texture, reminded me of boiled sweets that had been left in the sun for too long.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by this variety of BN and didn’t expect them to score as highly as they did. However, they offered something different to other biscuit products and, let’s face it, they had cute little faces! That said, I remain slightly concerned by just how unnatural the filling appeared and felt, and so I wouldn’t make this product a regular purchase. 

Appearance: 9/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 8.5/10
Overall score: 7.88/10