Cadbury Layers Of Joy: Caramellionaire

Product name: Cadbury Layers Of Joy: Caramellionaire
Purchase details: £1.00 for a pack of two desserts (Tesco)
Calories: 205 per 90g dessert
Country of origin: UK

I’ve tried a few Pots of joy from Cadbury in my time but this is the first time I’ve tried a new Layers Of Joy, with this brilliantly named ‘Caramellionaire’ being the variety I couldn’t wait to get stuck into.

The purple packaging featured an image of the product that looked like a trifle in style and that was the name it was given in the small print too. Made by Müller Dairy for Mondelez, the full description sounded mouth-watering: ‘shortcake biscuit at heart surrounded by delicious layers of Cadbury milk chocolate mousse, rich caramel dessert and white chocolate mousse’. You probably won’t be surprised to know that it was the white chocolate that particularly caught my eye!

The clear pot made it nice and easy to see three distinct layers of white chocolate (1% of the product was white chocolate powder), caramel, and milk chocolate (another 1% was milk chocolate but the pot also contained cocoa powder). However, despite accounting for 11% of the dessert, the shortbread wasn’t visible.

The dessert smelt of chocolate mousse (possibly as it was at the top!) and the latter aspect was also the key texture throughout. The chocolate layer was deep and provided quite a rich cocoa flavour and this went nicely with the caramel which was the same as my memory of Cadbury Dairy Milk: Pots of joy (caramel) and had quite a butterscotchy flavour to it.

Despite appearances, there was a definite biscuit layer next, with a buttery shortcake taste which was delicious. Rather than being hard and crumbly, this was soft and soggy, but very enjoyable!

I initially struggled to sample some of the white chocolate on its own, and it was hard to notice it against the other flavours, but it was possible to try it in larger quantities at the end of each pot. It was beautifully sweet and tasted a little like vanilla ice cream.

All in all, this was a really good dessert and, although I’d prefer a real piece of millionaire’s shortbread, the combination of layers did produce a satisfyingly authentic experience. To my surprise, it was the biscuit that made it, but every layer made its own unique and tasty contribution.

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 8/10
Texture: 8/10
Overall score: 7.63/10

Fox's Party Rings: Raspberry ripple

Product name: Fox’s Party Rings: Raspberry ripple
Purchase details: £0.50 for a 125g packet (Asda)
Calories: 27 per biscuit
Country of origin: UK

I was really excited when I first heard about the ice cream-inspired limited editions of some of Fox’s classic biscuits but it took me ages to track them down. Thankfully, I managed to find them all at an amazing £0.50 a packet in Asda, and the first variety I’m reviewing is the Party Rings: Raspberry ripple.

These excitingly-flavoured ‘iced shortcake rings’ came in colourful raspberry and baby pink packaging which was less ‘busy’ than the standard version but also contained Vinnie the panda. I’ve mentioned before that I found his image a bit unappetising (see here) but he’d had a bit of a makeover, here, and actually looked quite cute with a drop of melted ice cream on his ear!

The packet contained around 20 biscuits that were free of artificial colours, flavours and preservatives. There was no specific mention of raspberries on the ingredients so, what the flavourings contained, I’m not sure.

The rings looked almost identical to one of the standard Party Rings but seemed a tiny bit smaller – I’m not sure if I’m going mad?! To my delight, they genuinely smelt of Mr Whippy ice cream with raspberry sauce, and I couldn’t wait to tuck in.

I was impressed that the flavour was pretty realistic and did taste like raspberry ripple ice cream, although it was so sweet that there was a slight sherbet element too. They were absolutely full of flavour but also pretty sugary so, unusually for me, I would have liked a little bit more focus on the cream rather than the sugar.

Texturally, these biscuits were as standard for Party Rings, but the icing’s surface was a bit rougher on the tongue, and it seemed to add a juiciness to the flavour too.

This was such an interesting twist on a classic and it’s such a shame that it’s only intended to be a limited edition!

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 7.38/10

Fox's Velvety: Caramel & honeycomb cream

Product name: Fox’s Velvety: Caramel & honeycomb cream
Purchase details: £1.00 for a 130g packet of biscuits (Tesco)
Calories: 104 per biscuit
Country of origin: UK

I’m assuming they’re not new but, before I spotted them on offer, I’d never seen these Fox’s Velvety: Caramel & honeycomb cream biscuits. I thought the cream packaging featuring illustrations that showed off a thick inner cream layer and caramel centre looked fabulous so I couldn’t resist giving them a try.

This ‘luv-verly’ product was, in my opinion, on the high side in terms of calories per biscuit, but they did appear to be of the kind that you get in tins at Christmas so I was willing to make the sacrifice!

On removing a biscuit from the pack, I was delighted to find that the ‘soft honeycomb cream with a gooey caramel middle on a shortcake biscuit base’ looked very much like the image on the wrapper. The caramel (4%) looked a bit thicker whilst the cream appeared slightly thinner, although this was due to compression since I felt it squash as I cut it in two. Even so, it was still clearly visible, and I could see through the milk chocolate (50%) that it had been piped thickly into a flower shape.

The honeycomb cream had the strongest scent but this was mixed in with the chocolate, resulting in a sickly sweet aroma. Taste-wise, it provided a generally sweet, creamy and chocolatey flavour and this reminded me a bit of an old favourite chocolate bar of mine – Fox’s Classic: Original.

I really enjoyed the texture and the way the extremely soft centre collapsed into the crumbly biscuit as I chewed. I probably would have preferred the shortcake to be a bit crispier but this wasn’t really an issue.

The caramel was thick and stringy but didn’t have the most powerful flavour in the world. However, just when I was thinking the biscuits would have tasted as delicious with only the honeycomb cream, I decided to dip one of them into a cup of tea. What can I say? It was delicious! As well as the outer chocolate melting slightly, the caramel flavour became much more apparent.

These biscuits were definitely on the more indulgent side for me and they were totally worth the higher-than-normal calorie content. 

Appearance: 8.5/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 7.5/10
Overall score: 7.63/10

Fox's Party Rings

Product name: Fox’s Party Rings
Purchase details: £0.59 for a 125g packet (Home Bargains)
Calories: 29 per biscuit
Country of origin: UK 

The day of reviewing the original Fox’s Party Rings is finally upon us! I think I’ve posted about every other variety going but tonight it’s back to basics. I’ve mentioned before that I use these as a ‘filler’ snack due to their low calorie content but I can’t pretend that a little part of me doesn’t still get excited by them. My parents never bought them when I was growing up so they always felt such a treat when I got to have them at other kids’ parties and at my godmother’s house. It’s the little things...

Anyway, these biscuits cam in fun, child-friendly packaging – I loved the shade of blue and the colourful logo that reflected the biscuits within. There were also little doodles of objects to appeal to both genders, such as cars and flowers, so I was a bit confused when all of the ‘colourful, crunchy, iced ring biscuits’ were such girly shades of pink and yellow. I’d never appreciated that before, although I still thought the variety of hues was attractive and provided a bit more interest than the Blueberry muffin version, despite the overall appearance being the same.

Once more, the Party Rings contained no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives and, to my mild dismay, I found that they didn’t have the fairly strong and sugary scent I remember – I’d been hoping that was just a characteristic of the Footballs!

Thankfully, the other aspects of these shortcake biscuits remained as I had hoped. They had the exact same taste as the Party Footballs and the same texture as the Blueberry muffin Party Rings – all good stuff.

 

I don’t care how old I get, I’ll be buying these for years to come!

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