Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream: Satisfy my bowl

Product name: Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream: Satisfy my bowl
Purchase details: £2.24 for a 500ml tub (tesco.com)
Calories: 255 per 100ml serving

I seriously don’t know how I survived for so many years without having tried the delights of Unilever’s Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. This Fairtrade Satisfy my bowl tub was a special edition to mark the 30^th anniversary of Bob Marley’s Legend album, and also supported the 1Love Foundation which funds a youth-empowerment programme in Jamaica.

I was really interested in this ice cream since it was banana flavoured (it contained 4% banana puree) but also had cookie (6%) and caramel (9%) swirls and ‘chocolatey peace signs’ (4%). To fit in with the Caribbean theme, the usual green field of the branding was replaced with a sandy beach and a cow playing a guitar. However, the pale blue sky meant the packaging was still recognisably Ben & Jerry’s.

For this variety, a 100ml serving equated to 91g, and 23% of the product was cream itself. The ice cream was pale in colour but did have some visible caramel swirls. The chocolate chunks were presented as thick discs with raised peace signs, although the visibility of this finer detail varied.

As usual for frozen products, this didn’t emit any kind of smell, but the flavour was immense and felt like a full-on dessert. I allowed my ice cream to soften a fair amount before trying it and it was ridiculously creamy! Adding to this, the banana flavour was really strong, but then there was also a lovely, sugary taste from the caramel. I can’t say I really noticed the cookie swirls as a feature but, in contrast, the size and abundance of the chocolate made a massive difference to the experience. It tasted just liked ice cream chocolate sauce but its format meant it provided a crunchy texture amid the juicy, thick, but not completely smooth ice cream.

Whilst this tub of Satisfy my bowl wasn’t quite up there with the amazing Peanut butter cup, it did feel really special and it’s a shame it was only a limited edition.

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 5/10
Taste: 8/10
Texture: 8/10
Overall score: 7.13/10

Nakd Banana Bread

Product name: Nakd Banana Bread
Purchase details: £0.60 for a 30g bar or three for £1.20 (tesco.com)
Calories: 92 per bar
Country of origin: Britain

I really liked the sound of Nakd Banana Bread. Described as a ‘banana flavour raw fruit, oat’ and ‘nut wholefoods bar’, it was the same positively healthy concept as the Strawberry Crunch I’ve previously reviewed.

The bar came in a pale wrapper which, I felt, hinted at a caramel cream-type flavour. However, that may just be because I’ve had a Milky Way French Vanilla and Caramel eying me up from my stash for a few weeks! There was a subtle picture of a banana on the left-hand size of the wrapper, though, to remind me that this was a very different product.

The combination of dates (37%), bananas (23%), oats (21%), walnuts (8%), apple juice concentrate, vanilla and ‘a hint of natural flavour’ resulted in a product that looked...well, healthy! It had a similar appearance to the Strawberry Crunch but was darker. Despite not containing any crispy pieces on this occasion, the bar was certainly full of bits.

I’d mistakenly fooled myself into thinking that this Banana Bread would be like a loaf cake but I realised my error when I discovered the disappointing lack of a banana scent. Instead, it had quite a sharp aroma which I think was caused by the dates. Despite initially thinking I could sense a bit of banana in the mix, I realised that this was just wishful thinking!

Fortunately, the banana flavour did come through on the taste test, starting gently but then getting stronger. The first flavour to make an impact, though, was quite unusual and not the most pleasant, and this also caused a bit of a strange aftertaste. Again, I think it was the dates that caused this (a fruit I’m not a fan of, to be fair!), although the almost bitter taste I find walnuts have may have contributed to this too. That said, I’d never have guessed the product contained walnuts! Anyway, the good news was that the banana flavour was strong enough to lift the overall experience so, as I munched my way through the bar, it did still feel like a treat.

Texturally, the Banana Bread was quite chewy. It was generally soft with the odd tougher bit and the inclusion of the oats was a big plus. It may not sound pleasant as a description, but I really liked how little pieces were left behind at the end of each mouthful as it meant I could pretend I was eating a flapjack instead!

I think the Strawberry Crunch had given me higher expectations for this bar than, perhaps, was fair – I certainly thought I’d enjoy this variety more than I did. However, whilst it was my least favourite of the two Nakd varieties I’ve tried so far, I still thought it was excellent as a healthy snack...I’d just prefer to eat actual banana bread if taste were the only consideration! 

Appearance: 6/10
Aroma: 6/10
Taste: 6.5/10
Texture: 7.5/10
Overall score: 6.5/10

Cadbury Dairy Milk: Marvellous creations (banana caramel crisp)

Product name: Cadbury Dairy Milk: Marvellous creations (banana caramel crisp)
Purchase details: £1.00 for a 200g bar (Asda)
Calories: 128 per 25g serving (510 per 100g)
Country of origin: UK

I was really excited to pick up this new and great-value bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk: Marvellous creations (banana caramel crisp) by Mondelez UK. The product featured the usual Marvellous creations branding but, unsurprisingly, had a yellow border to reflect the flavour. I also really liked the image of a chocolate cannon shooting out bananas and caramel cubes.

Whilst I’d had a banana-themed chocolate before in the form of Amadeo Solo (chocolate-banana), this Cadbury bar was a very different offering and came described as ‘milk chocolate with banana flavour candy pieces (8%), caramel pieces (5%), and malted cereal balls (3%)’.

The bar had the same design (attractive but hard to evenly divide!) as the cola pretzel honeycomb variety but was packed full of different ingredients. Yellow blobs of banana candy were visible through the chocolate’s surface and large, brown cereal balls bulged out of the bar’s base. As for the caramel, these little cubes looked a lot like fudge and weren’t immediately obvious. Whilst there didn’t appear to be a shortage of excitement in the bar, I was slightly relieved to see a less bumpy surface than the cola pretzel honeycomb as I hoped this would result in a texture that wasn’t as busy.

The milk chocolate, unsurprisingly, was standard Dairy Milk. As a result, it had the usual creamy smell, although I was a little disappointed there was no hint of banana in this. However, there was an additional sweetness that was a bit like the cola pretzel honeycomb bar.

The flavours on offer were very much dependent on what additional goodness happened to be in each piece of milky chocolate. The banana candy had a slightly artificial taste and, whilst not subtle, wasn’t overpowering either. Rather than being foam sweets, these pieces were more like sugary beans – they were very sweet and reminded me a bit of the ‘banana medicine’ I had as a kid. As a result, they were a bit harder than I thought they’d be, but they were still crumbly.

The extremely crisp cereal tended to take me by surprise when I hit a piece! It had a slight but noticeable malted taste, as promised, but its rough texture did ruin the otherwise wonderful melt of the bar. As for the caramel cubes, these made more of a difference than I thought. Their flavour was pretty weak but they did provide a bit of a fudgy taste and their soft texture made a significant impact on the overall chunky chew by providing extra resistance and making the chocolate feel more crumbly.

I thought the different elements in this bar worked really well together – it was like having a sweet shop in the mouth after the chocolate had melted! Whilst the caramel wasn’t very powerful, it did seem to mellow the sweetness of the banana. I also quite enjoyed how the flavours weren’t evenly distributed as it provided a bit more variety, whilst always filling the mouth with some kind of deliciousness.

I’m not convinced Cadbury Dairy Milk: Marvellous creations (banana caramel crisp) is about to become the next big thing but it certainly seems to fill a gap on the mainstream market and I’d definitely buy this again.

Appearance: 9/10
Aroma: 8/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 7.88/10

Shaken Udder Banana!

Product name: Shaken Udder Banana!
Purchase details: £0.39 for a 200ml carton or three for £1.00 (Home Bargains)
Calories: 136 per carton
Country of origin: England 

Tonight’s review is my last of the Shaken Udder range designed for kids: Banana!

The concept and health claims of this product were the same as the Chocolate! and Strawberry! versions, and it came in a bright yellow carton.

The drink was made from ‘real banana’ and contained 94% semi-skimmed milk and 1% banana puree. The liquid pretty much looked like standard milk but it did have a very, very slight yellow tinge to it, and I noticed that it had been coloured by pumpkin and apple concentrates. Unusually, I found the scent of the milk itself to be stronger than the banana, but there was still a slight aroma of the latter present too.

As always, I chilled and shook the carton before opening. The milkshake still wasn’t quite as thick as I’d like but it did have a lovely creamy smooth texture. I somehow managed to lose the straw from my carton so I was unable to try drinking it in this way but, presumably, this would have made it feel a little thicker.

The banana flavour was noticeable but quite subtle – it tasted sweet and almost vanilla-like. I did think there was a slightly artificial element to the taste, too, but this was almost not worth mentioning compared to many other milkshakes I’ve had in my time.

What I enjoyed most about this Shaken Udder Banana! drink was just how refreshing it was. It was obviously more of a treat than a standard glass of milk but it didn’t provide the heaviness or sickliness that so many other flavoured milks and shakes do. As a result, this will be my variety of choice in future.

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

Jammie Dodgers Banana & Toffee

Product name: Jammie Dodgers Banana & Toffee
Purchase details: £0.39 for a 140g packet (Home Bargains)
Calories: 75 per biscuit
Country of origin: UK 

Earlier this month, I reviewed Jammie Dodgers Jam'n Custard and, whilst they were fine, I was left feeling slightly disappointed. I’d actually bought this Banana & Toffee packet before I’d tried and reviewed the Jam'n Custard biscuits so, by the time I got around to opening it, my expectations weren’t very high.

These Jammie Dodgers Banana & Toffee were very much a continuation of the brand. Once again made by Burton’s Foods Limited, they came in a similarly-designed wrapper to the Jam'n Custard biscuits, albeit with dark yellow and orange colours being used to represent the different flavour, and a splat of toffee instead of jam. The product image was almost identical too – the filling colours had simply been reversed and the darker side was a bit lighter.

Intriguingly, this packet weighed in at 10g lighter than the Jam'n Custard, although the wrapper claimed the ‘bonkers banana and tasty toffee’ flavour was ‘twice the fun’. There were no claims of using no artificial colours or ingredients, this time, but there was still no hydrogenated fat, and no GM ingredients had been used either. The final change was that each biscuit had eight fewer calories – winner!

I didn’t bother reading the product description when I purchased this treat – I just assumed the custard would be banana flavoured and that there would be toffee sauce instead of jam. Oh how wrong I was! I was very interested to see that the sandwich biscuit filling actually consisted of ‘banana flavoured jam’. That’s right. Banana. Jam. How bizarre! This contributed to 13% of the product and contained 1.5% banana juice from concentrate and 1% banana purée. As for the toffee, this was in the 13% custard filling, instead, and I was also pleasantly surprised to see that the biscuits themselves were toffee flavoured.

As suggested by the wrapper’s image, the biscuits had the same attractive overall design as the Jam’n Custard ones although I thought the ridges around the decoration seemed deeper to me – maybe that was just my imagination? The banana jam was more yellow than the wrapper (and my own photographs) suggested to the extent that it made me think of lemon curd. Although I don’t dislike lemon, I’m not a huge fan of it, so I had to make a conscious effort to get this connection out of my head! 

I had more success in cutting one of these biscuits open (although it was still very sticky!) which revealed an inner designated section for the filling – something I’d not noticed previously. The custard had the same shiny, gooey appearance whilst the toffee biscuits were a slightly different colour and had a visibly bitty base – I’d noticed that 3% of the ingredients consisted of crisped rice so I figured that this was what the flecks were.

This product had the usual Jammie Dodger biscuity smell, as well as a very, very slight banoffee aroma. Although the biscuits did still have the slightly stale taste that I don’t particularly enjoy, the additional flavour did mean that they were sweeter so they had been improved (not that I’d have consciously have made a connection with toffee!). Unfortunately, the texture was still more crumbly than I would have liked, but I did enjoy the added crispiness from the rice pieces.

Whilst I found it hard to differentiate between the two sides of the filling, the overall familiar banoffee flavour came through. The toffee flavour alone wasn’t very powerful but I did find the banana element, whilst slightly artificial, to be pleasantly strong and certainly recognisable. Texturally, the filling was chewy, as expected.

Whilst these Jammie Dodgers Banana & Toffee have equalled the Jam'n Custard biscuits’ overall score, I do think that this variety made improvements by infusing the biscuits themselves with a toffee flavour, as well as adding a bit of extra texture. I also found the variety’s flavour to be more unique and memorable. As a result, in future, this is the version I would choose. 

Appearance: 8/10
Aroma: 6/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 7/10