Milky Way Bar: French vanilla and caramel

Product name: Milky Way Bar: French vanilla and caramel
Purchase details: £1.50 for a 48.8g bar (A Quarter of Sweets)
Calories: 220 per bar
Country of origin: USA

I always have to remind myself that American Milky Ways are the equivalent of UK Mars bars. Bearing that in mind, this limited edition French vanilla and caramel variety, with its ‘rich chocolate’, ‘creamy caramel’ and ‘smooth nougat’ didn’t seem quite as unusual a concept as it would have done if compared to a British Milky Way!

 

Still made by Mars, I really liked this Milky Way Bar’s packaging, with the colour scheme reminding me of the Nakd Banana Bread, as I’ve previously mentioned. The product image’s luscious caramel topping, and the vanilla flower, were also easy on the eye.

I’ve only reviewed the UK Mars bar in miniature form as part of my Celebrations post, but I’ve eaten a lot of them in my time! As a result, I knew that the Milky Way, on the outside, looked very similar. It was slimmer, and a bit scuffed, but the inside looked incredible. The white nougat was really clean and fresh, whilst the amber caramel layer looked silky smooth.

As for the scent, there was a milky chocolate element to this, but it also smelt recognisably American in terms of the chocolate itself. Unfortunately, the vanilla aspect wasn’t incorporated into the aroma.

For me, the chocolate used on this bar wasn’t as nice as the British version – I can only assume that it was a different recipe! Aside from that, the vanilla nougat tasted immediately of ice cream and was almost floral. Whilst the bar was very sweet, it wasn’t as chocolatey as I would have liked. I did feel that the caramel was improved, though – it remained thick and incredibly gooey, but it was also as smooth as it had looked.

The combination of the chocolate and nougat ended up reminding me of the Charleston Chew Vanilla, although the Milky Way Bar: French vanilla and caramel was definitely a superior product – aside from the very inclusion of the caramel, I loved the way the chocolate shell cracked against the fantastically squidgy centre with every bite.

I’m certainly glad I tried this product but, to be perfectly honest, I much prefer the traditional, rugged and more chocolatey Mars bar!

Appearance: 8/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 8.5/10
Overall score: 7.63/10

Mrs. Freshley's Mini Donuts: Frosted

Product name: Mrs. Freshley’s Mini Donuts: Frosted
Purchase details: £2.50 for a 94g packet of six doughnuts (A Quarter of Sweets)
Calories: 440 per pack
Country of origin: USA

It’s been a few weeks now since I reviewed the Crunch and Cinnamon versions of Mrs. Freshley’s Mini Donuts, but I’ve finally got around to trying the Frosted version too.

Distributed by Flowers Foods Speciality Group, I expected the coating to make them the heaviest variety, but they were actually lighter than the Cinnamon ones. However, they did contain the most calories!

The thick, generously distributed and very dark frosting looked like chocolate and, on reading the ingredients, I saw that it did contain cocoa but that its main ingredient was sugar. I loved how this had been allowed to fill the doughnuts’ holes, forming mini columns in their centres, and the contrast with the pale inner dough made the frosting look almost black in colour.

The product smelt very much like chocolate coated doughnuts as soon as I opened the purple-themed packet and I was hoping that the waxy-feeling coating would provide a Magnum-like crack. In reality, I liked the way the solidity of the frosting combined with the soft dough, although the two did just merge together rather than the frosting cracking apart.

Once again boasting a new and improved recipe, I was expecting the dough itself to remain unchanged. It certainly had the same good, sweet and doughy flavour, and this went nicely with the more bitter and chocolatey coating. However, I found that the dough felt pretty dry and had no spring to it, which was a shame. Thankfully, though, the smooth, cool frosting helped distract from this.

This was another decent experience with ‘long-life’ doughnuts although I’d definitely prefer a fresh one when given the choice!

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

Mrs. Freshley's Swiss Rolls: Peanut butter flavored

Product name: Mrs. Freshley’s Swiss Rolls: Peanut butter flavored
Purchase details: £1.99 for a 79g pack of two cakes (A Quarter of Sweets)
Calories: 360 per pack
Country of origin: USA

I somehow missed these Mrs. Freshley’s Swiss Rolls on a previous visit to A Quarter of Sweets. The clear plastic wrapper had clearly shown off the chocolate-coated cakes but I hadn’t recognised the pale brown drizzle as an indicator that the product was ‘Peanut butter flavored’! I soon rectified this mistake with a return visit to the store, though.

A look here not only provided the calorie information for these Swiss Rolls, but that the very dark and fairly thick inner swirl of peanut butter was actually Reese’s – yay! That said, I didn’t think it looked much like peanut butter against the chocolate cake – its dense and sticky appearance was a bit like a funny-coloured jam.

The scent of these Rolls was very similar to Reese's Peanut Butter Cups but it was less chocolatey and not as strong. The chocolate-flavoured sponge was very soft, if a little dry, but the moist peanut butter allowed each bite to stick to the roof of the mouth a little. The texture was very much like your standard mini roll offering, really, and I liked how the flexible chocolate layer added a bendy crunch that mixed with the innards of each Roll.

The main flavour was like the chocolate element of a Peanut Butter Cup and seemed to come from the chocolate cake. If I’m honest, it wasn’t wonderful, but I could pick up a slight hint of peanut butter, and this provided a salty kick here and there.

These Mrs. Freshley’s Swiss Rolls: Peanut butter flavored were nice enough but I did feel a bit underwhelmed by their taste. I wouldn’t have described them as ‘nutty’ and, bearing in mind the main attraction was the inclusion of peanut butter, this didn’t feel like a dominant feature, in practice. I did love the concept, though, and would love to see more of this kind of thing in the UK!

Appearance: 8/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 7.25/10

Mrs. Freshley's Mini Donuts: Cinnamon

Product name: Mrs. Freshley’s Mini Donuts: Cinnamon
Purchase details: £2.50 for an 85g packet of six doughnuts (A Quarter of Sweets)
Calories: 360 per pack
Country of origin: USA 

At the time of purchasing my pack of Mrs. Freshley's Mini Donuts: Crunch, I also picked up this Cinnamon variety. I was a little bit more eager to try this version as it’s a spice I love and, although I think it’s a pretty common concept in America, I’d never actually had cinnamon on a doughnut before.

Again made by the Flowers Food Speciality Group, this product was exactly the same concept as the Crunch Donuts, but was more attractive due to its pale and speckled pinky-brown ‘cinnamon sugar coating’. The flavour was represented by a burnt orange colour on the familiar packaging and, as before, the recipe was apparently new and improved.

The Mini Donuts were soft and velvety to the touch and had a deep, warming cinnamon scent. The overall cinnamon flavour was the same kind of strength as Nestlé Curiously Cinnamon cereal and I found this developed on the rear tastebuds during each mouthful. The taste of the doughnut itself wasn’t as evident as with the Crunch version, although there was a baked sweetness there, but this hardly mattered as the cinnamon coating was so flavoursome and delicious!

The soft dough also didn’t feel dry this time – possibly as a result of the coating. I adored the texture as the powder was cooling and melted on the tongue like icing sugar. It felt like a thick layer and, for me, really lifted the whole experience.

I think it’s safe to say I have a new favourite product from Mrs. Freshley’s – fabulous!

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

Mrs. Freshley's Mini Donuts: Crunch

Product name: Mrs. Freshley’s Mini Donuts: Crunch
Purchase details: £2.50 for a 96g packet of six doughnuts (A Quarter of Sweets)
Calories: 380 per pack
Country of origin: USA

I love doughnuts, me, but so far in life, I’ve only ever come across the fresh variety. As a result, I was intrigued when I recently found two varieties of Mrs. Freshley’s Mini Donuts in A Quarter of Sweets. I wasn’t convinced that a longer life version would be very nice but there was only one way to find out!

The Donuts were distributed by Flowers Foods Speciality Group and featured the standard white and blue Mrs. Freshley’s branding. This Crunch variety was represented by the colour teal and, as usual, the inner product was visible through the packaging. This was partly what drew me to the product since the squishy doughnuts looked bigger than most British miniatures and, amazingly, the whole pack was one serving – wahey!

Despite being ring doughnuts, the golden treats were definitely more dough than hole. There was no product description so I was unsure what contributed to the ‘Crunch’ but the Donuts were coated in what looked like soggy crumbs. However, they were dry to the touch and despite the idea of a crunchy doughnut seeming a little strange, on close inspection, I wondered if the experience would actually be provided by sugar granules.

Inside, the dough was paler in colour and looked a bit like Madeira cake, and the scent produced by the apparently new and improved recipe was one similar to sugar-coated almonds.

I found these Mini Donuts did manage to capture the basic flavour of a doughnut and their sugary coating (I was right!) helped contribute to this. However, there was definitely a difference when compared to freshly baked ones – the outside felt quite moist in the mouth but the overall texture was pretty dry but dense. Thankfully, this wasn’t to the extent that I needed a drink to help me along, but they did feel more cake-like than doughnut-like. The Donuts also had a very slight metallic taste but, the more I ate, the sweeter the general flavour seemed to become.

As for being called ‘Crunch’, this was certainly a feature, but it was an element that was just like ordinary sugar-coated doughnuts rather than being created by some random add-on ingredient.

As long-life doughnuts, these Mrs. Freshley’s Mini Donuts: Crunch had the potential to be awful...but they weren’t! I can’t pretend they were as good as freshly baked ones but they were a perfectly acceptable alternative to keep in the cupboard for when the munchies strike. The fact that I’ve since been back and bought a third variety that had previously been out of stock is testament to their edibility!

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