Tesco Your Bakery: Blueberry muffins

Product name: Tesco Your Bakery: Blueberry muffins
Purchase details: £1.00 for a box of four muffins (Tesco)
Calories: 249 per 74.5g muffin
Country of origin: Ireland

I don’t normally buy supermarket bakery items since they don’t contain nutritional information but, when you get a voucher for a free packet of muffins from Tesco Clubcard, you don’t refuse! To my delight, when I went to pick up my box, I found that the all-important calories are now included on the packaging. They do make you work for the treat, though, since the information is only given per 100g and no product weight is provided!

I opted for the Blueberry muffins from Tesco Your Bakery and I felt the simple packaging reflected the freshness (although they weren’t actually baked in-store, as I had always assumed). Each muffin was a good size and had the expected appearance of a golden outer dough, with a paler bready inside. The top of each one was tinged blue (from the blueberries, not mould!), but when I cut one open, there were only two small berries on show. Knowing that 13% of the product was this fruit, I was confident there would be plenty more elsewhere, but I was still a little disappointed that there was no purple staining on the inside, like what I’m used to from coffee shop muffins.

Before I’d even opened the box, I was aware of the delicious smell coming from within, and this only got stronger when I did finally lift the lid. The cakes smelt deliciously of sweet vanilla and blueberry and they almost felt like they had a sticky glaze on their surfaces (they certainly left little greasy patches on the lid!).

The muffins’ dough was sweet, without being too sweet, and had quite a buttery flavour too. They had a delicate blueberry taste throughout but, unfortunately, the actual berries were very few and far between – even when I knew there was one in the piece I was eating, I could neither feel nor specifically taste it! Thankfully, though, the cakes were still delicious, and the moist and doughy texture was great too.

On the whole, I felt that these were as muffins should be...I just felt that the fruit should have been a bigger feature. After all, if I’d opted for chocolate-flavoured, I’m sure there would have been no shortage of generous chunks. Nevertheless, my family and I thoroughly enjoyed this treat, so thank you very much, Tesco!

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

Galaxy Ripple

Product name: Galaxy Ripple
Purchase details: £1.00 for a multipack of four bars (Tesco Superstore)
Calories: 175 per 33g bar

Another quick review tonight since these Galaxy Ripple bars by Mars were made using the same ‘smooth and creamy milk chocolate’ found in the Smooth Milk.

Made for the UK and Ireland, this product was essentially the Galaxy version of the Cadbury Flake, but with a smooth and glossy chocolate coating covering the ‘rippled centre’ – it looked like a long, slightly wrinkly log and was less messy to eat!

Whilst the overall branding was the same, I loved how the name’s font reflected the ribbon-like appearance of the chocolate centre that had been ‘folded into silky layers’.

The chocolate’s scent and flavour was the same as the Smooth Milk but I did find that its less dense middle section made it feel a little juicier. It still had a thick melt but this rippled part was definitely lighter and collapsed nicely under pressure. It had a nice crumbly snap to it as well but it still succeeded in filling the mouth with Galaxy’s delicious chocolate flavour.

I'd say that the composition of this bar made its melt a bit less luxurious but, on the whole, it was the same great product.

Appearance: 8/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 9/10
Texture: 8.5/10
Overall score: 8.25/10

Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream: Peanut butter cup

Product name: Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream: Peanut butter cup
Purchase details: £2.50 for a 500ml tub (tesco.com)

Calories: 280 per 100ml serving

Given my love of all things peanut butter, I should have rushed out to buy this Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream: Peanut butter cup when it was released, following many consumer requests. However, I wrongly assumed that it wouldn’t be that much different from the Core: Peanut butter me up that I tried about 18 months ago, so I waited for a price reduction and then kept the tub unopened in my freezer for a while. Let me tell you, I’m kicking myself now!

Made by Unilever for the UK and Ireland, this Fairtrade ‘peanut butter ice cream with peanut butter cups’ was a simpler idea to the Core variety since there was no jam. Although I’m a big fan of Reese's Peanut Butter Cup: Miniatures, my memory of the non-Reese’s cups in the Peanut butter me up was that their frozen nature made them a bit hard, which I guess is why I was hesitant to try a version that didn’t have the distraction of other flavours.

The tub featured the cheerful Ben & Jerry’s farmyard design and stated that each serving was the equivalent of two scoops or 86g. With a promising 20% of the product being the cups, the speckled ice cream turned out to be full of rugged chunks that actually made it quite hard to serve. I’m rubbish at scooping ice cream at the best of times but I had no chance of getting a neat portion here!

Despite being frozen, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this ice cream did have a slight peanutty scent. With 9% of the tub consisting of peanuts, and peanut flour also included, I was glad this did manage to come across.

Although 20% of the product was cream, I had been slightly disappointed to learn that the main ingredient was actually water. However, even when melted, the ice cream was quite thick and had a fairly creamy taste, as well as a slight graininess. The peanut flavour was by far the main aspect, though, with the emphasis being on salty rather than sweet tones.

Breaking up these salty hints was the star attraction: the peanut butter cups! I really don’t know what I was worried about because the chunky shells gave way to soft centres which were heavenly. The chocolate added a much-needed sugar hit and the abundance of peanut butter itself was more than I could have wished for.

 
I’m not going to pretend this ice cream was without faults. Personally, I would have liked the ice cream side of things to have had a tad more sweetness or creaminess (if not both!), but this was very good indeed and I did enjoy how the delicious cups were able to take centre stage.

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 6/10
Taste: 8.5/10
Texture: 8.5/10
Overall score: 7.63/10

Cadbury Dairy Milk: Mousse snowman (chocolate)

Product name: Cadbury Dairy Milk: Mousse snowman (chocolate)
Purchase details: £0.65 for a 30g bar or three for £1.20 (tesco.com)
Calories: 168 per bar

I may have only recently finished eating my stock from last Christmas, and I know it’s only September, but it’s time for my first review of Christmas 2014.

I could have sworn I’d had the vanilla version of the Cadbury Dairy Milk: Mousse snowman last year but, as I haven’t reviewed it, I must have just read so many other reviews of it that it felt like I’d tried one myself! Anyway, this chocolate variety is new so it’s the one I decided to buy. I did think it was expensive for the size but the multibuy made it better (although my third item was out of stock so it ended up being £0.40 by itself!).

I was pleased to see that the knitted theme had returned for this Christmas’ Cadbury packaging, and I thought the snowman on the front looked really cute in its scarf. The lovely and glossy ‘milk chocolate with a soft milk chocolate flavoured mousse filling (37%)’ was also shaped into an adorable snowman with a little hat and carrot nose.

Made using the usual Dairy Milk recipe, the snowman had a beautiful, deep and creamy scent and it tasted delicious. The inner mousse was a slightly paler colour and was richer than I expected but this tasted great against the sweeter shell. It was soft, smooth and melted well, reminding me more of a truffle than a mousse. The shape of the product really added to the overall experience, too, by providing variety in the ratio of chocolate to mousse – no mouthful was the same but each one was incredibly enjoyable.

I remember trying another snowman-shaped chocolate last year, in the form of The Snowman chocolate truffle in the Thorntons The Snowman and The Snowdog: Christmas selection box, and being a bit underwhelmed by the flavour. For me, this Dairy Milk alternative nailed the concept, in comparison, as there was a clear difference in taste between the chocolate and the mousse.

Thank you, Mondelez, for another tasty treat for us lucky people in the UK and Ireland!

Appearance: 9/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 8.5/10
Texture: 8.5/10
Overall score: 8.38/10

Nestlé Kit Kat: Chunky

Product name: Nestlé Kit Kat: Chunky
Calories: 247 for a 48g bar

I still remember the day I started my love affair with the Nestlé Kit Kat: Chunky. I was 10 years old and staying with an aunty during the Summer holidays. I was sat in the back of her car as she filled the tank with petrol and, before she went to pay, she asked me if I’d ever had one because she loved them. I told her I hadn’t and, when she emerged from the little shop, she handed my first ever Chunky in its classic red wrapper. As much as I liked the standard bars, I didn’t find them particularly exciting, so I wasn’t sure how this was going to be any different. It turned out she was right and, until the peanut butter version came out later, it was my favourite chocolate bar!

Anyway, this particular bar was a gift from a colleague (who was oblivious to the back story!) and was made for the UK and Ireland market. It contained no artificial flavours, colours or preservatives and was described as a ‘crispy wafer finger covered with thick milk chocolate’.

In terms of appearance, it looked exactly the same as the mint version, although I didn’t think the chocolate layer looked as thick as it used to, despite contributing to 67% of the product.

The aroma was the great, strong Kit Kat one I’ve grown accustomed to – pretty chocolatey and sweet. The chocolate wasn’t amazing quality but I still loved it since it had a good flavour and a deep sugary taste. The usual sweetness from the wafer tasted as fabulous as ever against this richer coating.

Of course, it’s the very chunkiness of the chocolate that made this bar what it was. I particularly loved biting off each end where the relatively soft chocolate was particularly thick. The ratio of chocolate to wafer basically produced the same great, chunky but crisp texture as the white choc version of the bar.

There’s no doubt about it...the Nestlé Kit Kat: Chunky will always hold a special place in my heart.

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 8/10
Texture: 8.5/10
Overall score: 7.88/10