Haribo Tangfastics: Minis

Product name: Haribo Tangfastics: Minis
Calories: 75 per 22g bag 

This evening’s review is of another sweet treat that Father Christmas brought me – Haribo Tangfastics: Minis (the ‘mini’ part seemed to relate to the size of the packet rather than the sweets inside!).

Despite not being chocolate, I am a fan of Haribo, although I have a love-hate relationship with tangy sweets. I’m not really keen on the sharpness involved but, at the same time, I find it’s worth pushing through this by sucking the sugary coating off in order to get to the good stuff.

These Tangfastics (I love this play on the word ‘fantastic’, by the way!) contained no artificial colours and were represented by orange packaging. The front of the wrapper contained cartoon images of the Haribo bear and other characters that, I assumed, would be found inside. No country of origin was stated but the only contact details provided were for the UK and Ireland.

The ‘sour mix’ was described as ‘fizzy fruit flavour’ and ‘sweet foam gums’ and I was surprised at just how many fruit and plant concentrates they contained (*deep breath*: apple, blackcurrant, carrot, elderberry, grape, kiwi, lemon, mango, nettle, hibiscus, orange, passion fruit and spinach!).

The two obvious shapes present in the pack were cherries and the famous cola bottles. However, partly due to the sugar coating, I struggled to work out what the other two were supposed to be. I thought one was a frog head but, looking at the wrapper, I wondered if this was supposed to be the crocodile. The other, I decided, was a spoon, so that’s what I’ll refer to it as!

All of the shapes were colourful and the ones with foam backings had really white and fresh-looking bases. Due to the stiff, gummy nature of the sweets, I only bothered cutting one of them open, but I was pleased to see a clean jelly appearance inside, despite the rough outer texture.

The Tangfastics didn’t have an obvious scent but it was possible to smell the sugar up-close. This sugar did have a sharpness, when tasted, but this didn’t last too long, and I found that sucking it off left a flavourful, smooth sweet in the mouth.

The spoon sweet had an apple flavour which I found to be fruity and quite juicy. Like all of the sweets in the bag, it was a bit too chewy for my liking as it was hard work to get to the end of it!

The crocodiles had foam backings which provided both a softer taste and texture. In fact, texturally, they were a bit like chewier marshmallows. The red crocodile had a nice berry flavour whilst the yellow one appeared to be lemon but, thankfully for me, it wasn’t too citrusy. As for the purple sweet, this seemed to have a blackcurrant flavour – it had a deeper fruity taste which was quite like Maynards Wine Gums.

The cola bottles tasted as you’d expect cola-flavoured sweets to taste! I love coke (I drink Pepsi Max all day long) and I do quite like it when this taste is transferred to edible items. However, whilst Haribo did a good job of recreating the flavour here, I do prefer their standard cola bottles to these tangy ones.

As for the cherry sweets, these were my favourite of this selection, and they had an instantly recognisable flavour.

I’m still not a massive fan of sour sweets, and I’d always opt for plain ones when given the choice, but these Tangfastics were a lot more flavourful (particularly beneath the tang) than I remembered, and there were some good tastes there.  

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

Kellogg's Pop Tarts: Frosted blueberry

Product name: Kellogg’s Pop Tarts: Frosted blueberry
Purchase details: £1.20 for a pack of two tarts (United States Grocery)
Calories: 410 per pack
Country of origin: USA 

Having not had any Pop Tarts since July (JULY!), I recently put my Living Social voucher towards this pack from United States Grocery. I was particularly interested to try this Frosted blueberry variety since it’s the first American fruit flavour I’ve sampled, and blueberry is also not a flavour I eat very often.

This twin pack of toaster pastries was presented in the same style of blue packaging as the Frosted brown sugar cinnamon and Frosted s'mores varieties that I’ve reviewed previously. The image on the wrapper showed that the tarts had a jam-like filling and were topped with a white frosting and multicoloured sprinkles.

The front of the packet boasted that the pastries were ‘baked with real fruit!’ and this equated to 10% of the filling which contained dried blueberries, grapes and apples.

The Pop Tarts were so pretty! Despite the product image, I wasn’t expecting them to be quite so colourful in reality. The pastry itself looked the same as the other varieties I’ve tried and I liked that the dark red of the deep filling was visible through the air holes on the top.

In keeping with tradition, I tried half of one pastry cold, the other half toasted, and the final, complete tart microwaved for 10 seconds.

When cold, these pastries had a deep fruity smell that took me back to a specific Summer in my childhood when I ate quite a lot of Go Ahead! Fruit Bakes. Texturally, the pastry was soft but crumbly and had the usual, slightly salted taste, although it also seemed to have absorbed some of the surrounding fruitiness. This was a slightly strange but pleasant phenomenon since the flavour was similar to some kind of Swizzels Matlow sweet (I’m not quite sure which one, though!). The icing provided a nice crispiness whilst the squidgy filling ensured the tart was moist. Surprisingly, I thought the most noticeable fruit taste was apple. However, I didn’t consider this to be a negative thing and I actually thought that this was the most flavoursome type of cold Pop Tart I’ve tried so far.

Toasting half of a tart produced a slightly molten appearance which made me think of toasted marshmallows. It also resulted in a stronger aroma but this was more in terms of the pastry rather than the filling. I loved how crispy the dough went after being toasted since this provided a greater contrast in textures. It also had a more buttery flavour whilst the fruit filling seemed tangier.

After being microwaved, the product didn’t look any different to its cold counterpart, but the pastry did become softer and more flexible. I also found that the sweetness of the icing became more evident and, as a result, set off the fruit’s sharpness nicely.

I wasn’t expecting to rate a fruity Pop Tart quite so highly but these Frosted blueberry ones were pretty good! The best thing about them, for me, was that, for the first time, I didn’t have a preferred way of eating them – each method provided something different yet equally enjoyable. 

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