McVitie's Digestives: Strawberry cheesecake creams

Product name: McVitie’s Digestives: Strawberry cheesecake creams
Purchase details: £1.00 for a 168g packet (Asda)
Calories: 67 per biscuit
Country of origin: UK

I really wanted to try these McVitie’s Digestives: Strawberry cheesecake creams as soon as they were released as they seemed more exciting than the vanilla version. However, although I bought them straight away, it’s taken me until now to open them!

Made by United Biscuits, there were around 13 ‘wheatmeal biscuits with strawberry and cream cheese flavour filling’ in each packet. The wrapper and sandwich biscuits were designed in exactly the same way as the vanilla variety but featured baby pink colouring, instead, which I really liked. I did also think the firm filling looked a bit thinner and more widely spread out but that may have just been the unlucky biscuit I attempted to dissect. (As you can see from my photo, the McVitie’s Digestives remained soft and crumbly which made the finished product practically impossible to pull apart in one piece!)

There was no mention of strawberries of any kind on the ingredients (just ‘natural flavouring’) but the biscuits did have a subtle yet noticeable strawberry scent – very much like flavoured milk. The ‘cheesecake inspired strawberry flavour cream filling’ also had a good strawberry flavour but without the sugar hit that I noticed in the Hill Biscuits Snack Packs: Strawberry creams. I was also pleased to find that the cheesecake concept was better executed, here, since there was a cheesy tang from the ‘dried cream cheese’ (2.5%) mixed in with the strawberry.

The biscuit itself was the usual, slightly sweetened kind, with a soft crunch and, even on its own, it had picked up hints of the berry taste. The nature of the sandwich design did mean that the proportions still weren’t right for an authentic cheesecake feel but I did think these Strawberry cheesecake creams were much more enjoyable than the vanilla ones.

I’d definitely buy them again!

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

McVitie's Digestives: Milk chocolate & orange

Product name: McVitie’s Digestives: Milk chocolate & orange
Purchase details: £1.00 for a 300g packet (tesco.com)
Calories: 84 per biscuit
Country of origin: UK

I vaguely remember these McVitie’s Digestives: Milk chocolate & orange biscuits being released previously but I know I never got around to sampling them. Thankfully, they’re now back, so I was looking forward to trying another incarnation of one of my favourite flavour combinations.

Made by United Biscuits, the pack contained an average of 18 Digestives, and they came in a ginger wrapper which reminded me of an old cat of ours! The product image looked like standard chocolate digestive biscuits, and I noticed that these particular ones contained 30% chocolate, had no artificial flavours, colours or hydrogenated vegetable oil in them, and they also supported British farmers and rural communities.

The biscuit bases were quite pale in colour and the chocolate toppings looked quite milky in appearance. The latter also had a tendency to look and feel a bit melted in the heat we’ve been having! The biscuits had an ingrained orange scent too although, unfortunately, one that didn’t waft.

Texturally, this snack was as you’d expect: the biscuit itself was really crispy, if a little dry, but the chocolate really lifted it. They were particularly good dipped in tea as the orange-flavoured chocolate melted and was just lovely.

Speaking of which, the orange taste was delicious and stronger than I’d dare hope for. I have nothing against the flavour of plain digestives but the orange on offer here completely masked that much blander element and produced a very tasty treat.

I hope these will stick around this time!

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

McVitie's Hobnobs: Flapjacks (milk choc)

Product name: McVitie’s Hobnobs: Flapjacks (milk choc)
Purchase details: £0.65 for a 170g packet of five flapjacks (tesco.com)
Calories: 154 per 35g flapjack

Country of origin: UK

As a lover of Hobnobs, chocolate and flapjacks, I couldn’t resist buying these McVitie’s Hobnobs: Flapjacks (milk choc) when I spotted them on offer. The appetising photo on the front of the eye-catching pale blue and orange wrapper helped too!

The individually wrapped bars were made by United Biscuits and contained no artificial flavours or colours. They contained 41% ‘rolled oats baked with Hobnob biscuit pieces’ (25%), 12% golden syrup, 9% butter, and were ‘topped with milk chocolate’ (8%). Apparently they were ‘even more hobnobbly’ but I wasn’t sure if this was compared to the standard biscuits or a previous version of this Flapjack recipe!

The flapjacks were a nice golden colour but did look a little dry – I would have liked to see a thicker layer of chocolate too. However, they still looked delicious, and they also had a lovely deep and buttery flapjack scent.

Biting into a slightly stiff, chewy and bitty bar, I loved the buttery and oaty flavour which had an ever-present juicy, syrupy undertone. It was certainly drier than homemade flapjacks, too, but it was still extremely pleasant.

Unfortunately, the chocolate didn’t really add anything, but then this product was tasty enough by itself – money well spent!

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 7.25/10

McVitie's Dessert Inspirations...:Sticky toffee cake bars

Product name: McVitie’s Dessert Inspirations...: Sticky toffee cake bars
Purchase details: £0.79 for a pack of five bars (Home Bargains)
Calories: 144 per bar
Country of origin: UK

These new McVitie’s Dessert Inspirations...:Sticky toffee cake bars were another product that caught my eye because, like the Milky Way: Cake bars, they made use of a non-chocolate sponge. The sticky toffee flavour also attracted me, of course, but I still nearly left them on the shelf. It was only when I spotted the pale, gooey cream on the mouth-watering picture that I read the description that finally twisted my arm: ‘moist sponge topped with a toffee flavour cream, a layer of sticky toffee and covered in a smooth milk chocolate’.

Made by United Biscuits, I loved the rich chocolate colour of the packaging, and the individually wrapped bars were a decent size to boot. The sponge was clearly a little more than your standard Madeira cake with some added colour that brought its appearance more in-line with a less-aerated bread. This was topped with a generous layer of fudge-coloured cream, a slightly thinner layer of a much darker caramel sauce (13%), all encased in a chocolate shell (35%).

The bars emitted a sweet chocolate scent through which a slight hint of caramel also made itself known. The latter was much more apparent in the taste. For starters, whilst not as moist as the Milky Way: Cake bars, the sponge had an added brown sugar element. The silky smooth cream then provided a lovely, deep caramel flavour, and the sauce was even richer. Combined, there was almost a smokiness to the experience.

There’s no pretending that these bars were like an actual sticky toffee pudding, but I didn’t expect them to be! Instead, like their name suggested, they had simply been inspired by the dessert. They were much lighter and had a gentler flavour, but they also added something positively different to the cake bar market. The best thing for me, though, was the fantastic way the toffee sauce oozed out as I took each bite of the treat...fabulous. 

Appearance: 8.5/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 8.5/10
Overall score: 7.88/10