Vrettos Snappy (honey)

Product name: Vrettos Snappy (honey)
Purchase details: £0.75 for a 50g pastry (Tesco Superstore)
Calories: 165 per pastry
Country of origin: Greece

For years, I had a childhood memory of eating some unknown but delicious pastry product at a buffet. Having never come across it again, I began to wonder if I’d made it up, until my friend brought her Mum’s homemade baklava into school to celebrate Eid. Despite that now being years ago, I’ve not had it since, so I couldn’t resist trying this shop-bought version. As it happens, the wrapper of the Vrettos Snappy (honey) didn’t include the word ‘baklava’, but Tesco's website confirmed that that’s what it was.

The ‘crispy snack with honey’ came in an orange wrapper that had a honeycomb design and showed an image of the pastry product sitting in a pool of honey. I had been worried that the long shelf-life would have caused the baklava to dry out but the treat was actually served in a little tray in an attempt to keep it moist from the runny ‘flower honey’ (4%) that was visible on the inside of the wrapper. It would have been rude not to have sampled this and I thoroughly enjoyed its deliciously sweet yet floral flavour.

The roll looked nice enough from the outside – the pastry made up 27% of the product and provided a crispy shell to cut through before the tougher filling which accounted for 10%. This centre looked a bit off-putting, in comparison. The translation wasn’t great but I could see it at least contained almond, clove, nutmeg and cinnamon so, arguably, that’s where the main flavours were. For some reason, though, the combination looked a bit like meat!

One of my main memories from previously trying baklava was its sweetness and this version contained 19% Greek sugar in addition to 20% glucose. With the honey, it was sticky to the touch, and all these sweet aspects provided a lovely juiciness in the midst of quite a chewy product.

I found this Snappy to be quite festive. Its scent was like a mild marzipan with a hint of the inner spices and, in the taste, I could really taste the nutmeg and cinnamon. The pastry was quite buttery and I liked the novelty of the crunchy nuts here and there too.

Whilst the product was full of flavour, I did find it a little dry in places on the outside. It wasn’t awful but the texture just wasn’t quite right. There was quite a lot of honey on the base which provided a fantastically sweet flavour and moisture and I would have loved this to have encapsulated the whole roll.

Overall, this was a really enjoyable treat which I’m glad I found. I was actually impressed that it didn’t contain more calories than it did as, what with all the sugar and greasiness from the honey, it didn’t feel particularly healthy!

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

Metcalfe's Skinny: Topcorn (sweet cinnamon spice)

Product name: Metcalfe’s Skinny: Topcorn (sweet cinnamon spice)
Purchase details: £1.58 for a 75g bag (Asda)
Calories: 117 per 25g serving (351 per bag)
Country of origin: UK

Metcalfe’s Skinny is a brand of popcorn (or ‘Topcorn’) I’d never tried before but that I wanted to give a go. I much prefer sweet popcorn to savoury so it was this sweet cinnamon spice flavour from ‘the lovelier, lighter snack tribe’ that I decided to try.

This sharing bag (which I dutifully kept to myself!) featured a floral design and nice image of falling popcorn that promised to be light but filling. Confusingly, only 51% of the product was ‘popped butterfly popcorn’ so the ‘delicious natural flavourings’ obviously took up a lot of space! These consisted of sugar, cinnamon and full cream.

The Topcorn itself looked very much like the Tyrrell's Proper Popcorn: Sticky toffee pudding due to its pale colour, being coated in a powder rather than a glaze, and having a papery feel. There was also an element of cardboard to the scent but the hint of cinnamon still made the aroma a pleasant one.

In terms of the flavour, there was certainly no denying that it was sweet and tasted of cinnamon! The base popcorn flavour was like a creamier version of the type you get in the cinema, but this extra flavouring was very tasty indeed...I just would have liked it to be stronger. Generally, even the more thickly-coated pieces weren’t very powerful, although the ones nearer the bottom of the bag were far more delicious than the ones at the top.

 

As suggested by the Topcorn’s appearance, the texture was the same as the Sticky toffee pudding Proper Popcorn, but it wasn’t as powdery. The bag seemed to last for ages as well which was an added bonus.

I may have appreciated a stronger flavour from this sweet cinnamon spice Topcorn but it did have a nice level of sweetness. There was something really warming about it and I think it would be perfect for settling down to watch a Christmas film with.

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

Kingdom Dark Chocolate Lemon & Lime Centre

Product name: Kingdom Dark Chocolate Lemon & Lime Centre
Calories: 162 per 30g serving (541 per 100g bar)
Country of origin: England

I can’t remember when or how I first heard of the Kingdom brand but I do remember it was their peanut butter-filled chocolate that I found out about at the time. Up until now, I’d never been lucky enough to have tried any of their chocolate, but I have been keeping a close eye on them on social media and was delighted to win three bars from their Facebook page – thanks, Kingdom!

My first impressions of the brand were excellent. Kingdom pride themselves on making ‘modern British chocolate’ which they describe as being ‘new and uniquely flavoured bars’ that are ‘delicately decadent’ and the product of ‘British creativity’. They are also keen to combine fun with high quality produce.

The first bar I’m reviewing  is the Dark Chocolate Lemon & Lime Centre which contained no artificial ingredients and contained ‘Ethical Ugandan cocoa’ as part of the Cocoa Development Project.

As excited as I was by this brand, I wasn’t really expecting to like this particular variant as I’m not a huge fan of dark chocolate, lemon or lime! They’re all ingredients I can eat, just not ones I’d necessarily choose. My interest was raised, however, when I saw that it was described as ‘dark chocolate with a white chocolate lemon and lime centre’. Regular readers will know that I’m a little bit obsessed with white chocolate so this was a massive plus for me. There was also something about the combination of the main three ingredients that I thought would actually work, even if they weren’t my favourites.

Kingdom’s branding is royal-themed, with their logo being a crown that is featured on their wrappers, as well as each of the 12 squares that this bar was divided into. I absolutely loved the striking colours used as well. The vibrant green and pink shades were very different, and there was a little image of a lemon and lime too, to represent the flavour. Unfortunately, this bar was already partly open at the top when I received it, but I assumed that this happened in transit as the chocolate itself was fine. It had still been sealed in a jiffy bag for delivery and, once I received it, I transferred it to an airtight bag to keep it as fresh as possible.

The dark chocolate contributed to 80% of the bar and contained a minimum of 61% cocoa solids. Another 38% was sugar! The white chocolate accounted for 13% of the product and I was also interested to see that 4% of the bar was coconut oil. As for the flavours, these came from lemon, lime and lime oil.

The chocolate was properly chunky and actually pretty hard to snap. I was also a bit alarmed when breaking off a row didn’t reveal the ‘delightfully delicate centres in every chunk’ but it turned out that these fillings were entirely contained within each piece. Once I cut a square in two, I could see the lovely contrast between the very dark brown shell and the white centre.

 

The bar had a pretty strong dark chocolate scent but there wasn’t a hint of lemon or lime within this. The chocolate’s strength was just as prominent in its flavour and it was certainly the dominant element of the bar. It was bitter, with strong cocoa tones, and it also had a smooth melt which eventually led to the slightly softer, but still smooth, white chocolate. As you can probably imagine by the bar’s appearance, the chocolate was also enjoyably chunky to chew too.

 

The filling didn’t taste of white chocolate but the citrus flavour managed to make an impact against the powerful dark chocolate. It had the subtlety of the lemon mousse centres that can often be found in selection boxes but it still did enough to lessen the chocolate’s bitterness. I was pleased that the citrus taste wasn’t sharp and imagined that it was the white chocolate’s sweetness that achieved this.

Due to personal taste, this product’s flavours still weren’t my favourite, but I did think the combination worked well together and I liked how the dark chocolate’s bitterness was lessened by the lighter filling. I actually thought these ingredients would work well together in a cake as, in a solid chocolate, I found it a bit too intense and sickly. However, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would, and I can’t wait to try my other bars!

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 6.5/10
Texture: 7.5/10
Overall score: 7.13/10

Nestlé Kit Kat

Product name: Nestlé Kit Kat
Purchase details: £1.00 for a multipack of four four finger bars (Tesco Superstore)
Calories: 233 per 45g bar
Country of origin: UK

I ate a lot of two finger Kit Kats growing up but the four finger kind has always been a much rarer treat. I definitely prefer the depth of chocolate on the Kit Kat: Chunky, these days, but I figured I might as well review the original.

This bar contained the famous red branding and a nice image of the bar, but I did find it a bit strange that the fingers on the wrapper were completely smooth, rather than containing an imprint of the product logo – not very realistic! The packaging also followed suit with the other varieties by being made of glossy plastic rather than the paper and foil of my childhood.

Like most (if not all?) Nestlé products these days, the ‘four crispy wafer fingers covered with milk chocolate’ contained no artificial flavours, colours or preservatives. As well as this, the chocolate (66%) was part of their Cocoa Plan, and the cocoa, sugar and vanilla used in the recipe were all Fairtrade.

The rectangular bar was uniform in appearance but I did notice that the chocolate was a lot thinner on the base, where the wafer was clearly visible. What made me smile to myself, though, was the way that I’m now so familiar with the Chunky bars that I see these standard ones as a smaller version of them rather than the other way around!

Understandably, the sensory experiences on offer were largely unchanged from the Kit Kat: Chunky. The aroma was identical and the flavour was also the same, although I found it had a slightly metallic element to it. As for the texture, the wafer remained incredibly crispy but I found myself missing being able to bite off the chocolate layer on its own. However, this thinner outer lay didn’t detract from the overall chocolatey flavour, so I was very pleased about that.

You’ve got to love a classic like the Nestlé Kit Kat. Just do me a favour and make sure you eat them properly (finger by finger) – none of this, please!

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