Lotus Biscoff: Spread (crunchy)

Product name: Lotus Biscoff: Spread (crunchy)
Purchase details: £1.79 for a 380g jar (tesco.com)
Calories: 572 per 100g
Country of origin: Belgium

Although I’m not generally familiar with the brand of Lotus Biscoff biscuits, I’ve been wanting to try their spreads for a while and have even seen positive comments from my non-blogger Facebook friends about them. I’m not surprised, though...they’re essentially liquidised biscuits!

Due to the usual high store prices, I’d always assumed that these Lotus Bakeries jars had been imported from America, but they were actually from Belgium. Either way, I’d been waiting for an offer to come along and I immediately snapped up a jar of this crunchy spread, as well as a smooth one, as soon as that happened. As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one who was keen try these spreads – I’d fully intended to review the smooth one first but, when I took off the lid, I discovered that some nasty shopper had stuck their finger through the foil layer in-store and helped themselves to some – thanks to Tesco for refunding me for this...I’ve been able to pick up another jar before the offer runs out!

Anyway, this crunchy variety of ‘the original caramelised biscuit spread’ was represented by a yellow lid and I loved the visualisation of a Lotus biscuit being turned into the spread. Although not relevant to me, I was impressed to see that it was both vegetarian and vegan, and the spread also contained no added flavours or colours, and no hydrogenated fat. What it did contain was 65% biscuits which resulted in a product that looked like a slightly darker-than-normal peanut butter.

Whilst nutritional information was provided, there was no suggested serving size, so how calorific or not a snack it was fully depended on how much was used and what it was served with! So far, I’ve only consumed it on ‘naughty’ days, and I think I might have to keep it that way because it was just so good – who needs bread when you’ve got a spoon?!

The spread was pretty thick and, whilst the crunchy bits weren’t really visible, they could be felt easily with the knife. The deep scent incorporated both caramel and biscuits but also hinted at ginger snaps – although it was very good, it was also on the verge of being a bit much.

On trying the spread on its own, it was very crispy but with the fabulous thick texture I’ve come to associate with peanut butter. In terms of flavour, it was quite like digestives but with a sweeter yet darker caramel element.

On bread, this crispy texture remained really noticeable and the flavour was still good too. The best bit, though, was the way the gloopy texture combined with the dough of the bread, making the roof of my mouth very happy indeed.

Finally, I sampled some of the spread on toast. The heat caused the spread to melt pretty quickly and the flavour and texture remained really good (although it wasn’t really possible to differentiate between the ‘crunchy’ aspect of the spread and the toast). Despite forgetting to check the toaster’s settings and subsequently cooking it for longer than I would have liked, the sweetness of the spread really helped disguise the slightly burnt bits, so I still enjoyed every mouthful...praise indeed.

This really was an excellent product and I can’t wait to eat the rest of it! There are quite a few biscuit spreads on my wish list right now and, if they’re all this good, I’m going to have to be keeping an extra-close eye on my waistline in the coming months.

Appearance: 7/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 8/10
Texture: 8.5/10
Overall score: 7.75/10