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

Kinder Bueno

Product name: Kinder Bueno
Purchase details: £0.70 for a 43g bar or three for £1.20 (Tesco Superstore)
Calories: 122 per 21.5g finger (244 per bar)
Country of origin: UK

I’ve never met anybody who doesn’t like Ferrero’s Kinder Bueno – a light yet satisfying ‘milk and hazelnut’ chocolate bar.

Presented in the brand’s familiar milk-white and red packaging, there was also a nice image of the inner product which was divided into two individually-wrapped fingers. A portion was only supposed to be one of these but I can honestly say I’ve never saved the other one until later!

Each finger was divided into four segments which weren’t too dissimilar from the Cadbury Crispello pieces. These cubes of ‘milk chocolate covered wafer’ were much fuller of their ‘smooth milky and hazelnut filling’, though, and were finished with a nice drizzle of darker chocolate too.

The bar had a light nutty scent with a hint of milk chocolate and I thought its 10.5% hazelnut content seemed pretty good going. These nuts were present in the very pale beige filling which had been smooth to cut through and also proved to be incredibly soft – hence the little dent where I accidentally knocked it with my finger! In the mouth, its smoothness continued, and it was lovely and thick too. I could taste both the milk and the nuts and this combination dominated the product’s flavour.

 

Despite containing 31.5% chocolate, this aspect wasn’t very noticeable, although it did add something a little extra to the crispy wafer and filling. It was clear from each finger’s base that the coating wasn’t particularly thick but it did still manage to provide relatively strong cocoa flavours if left to melt. Sucking each piece also provided the added advantage of the three components dissolving together.

I hadn’t had a Kinder Bueno for a while but I was pleased to find it hadn’t changed – as well as the great taste, I particularly loved how the filling had a habit of sticking to the roof the mouth. Delicious! 

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

Cadbury Caramello

Product name: Cadbury Caramello
Purchase details: £1.79 for a 45g bar (Mr Simms)
Calories: 220 per bar
Country of origin: USA

I’ve wanted to try the Cadbury Caramello for ages but have never managed to find it. For that reason, when I finally came across it in Mr Simms, I was prepared to pay more for it than I would normally on a bar of this size.

Containing ‘creamy caramel’, I was intrigued to see just how different it was from the Dairy Milk: Caramel, although I was aware that the chocolate itself wasn’t Dairy Milk, despite the almost identical packaging (there was just more emphasis on the purple than the yellow and the name looked like it had been written in caramel)!

The bar was distributed by The Hershey Company and the image on the wrapper looked absolutely delicious. Divided into four chunky, brand-imprinted squares, it had suffered some significant leakage so I quickly discovered just how unbelievably sticky the filling was.

The bar had a sweet and creamy scent which I would have liked to have been stronger but I was much more interested in the flavour...

The amber caramel was so buttery that it was unreal. It was nice and gooey too and really reminded me of the Galaxy Caramel’s (reviewed here here) combination of runny caramel and creamy chocolate. Unfortunately, though, I felt that the Cadbury chocolate used here ruined the experience somewhat. It was quite brittle, didn’t really melt, and was not very flavoursome either. The caramel certainly did lift it but, to be honest, I would have been happy to just eat a pot of it on its own!

All things considered, I think if you put this caramel into a bar of Dairy Milk, you’d be onto one heck of a winner.

Appearance: 7/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 6.5/10
Overall score: 6.88/10

Walkers Jed's Sizzling Steak Fajita

Product name: Walkers Jed’s Sizzling Steak Fajita
Purchase details: £0.99 for a multipack of six bags (Home Bargains)
Calories: 132 per 25g bag
Country of origin: UK

This bag of Walkers Jed’s Sizzling Steak Fajita was the final flavour I tried from the Do Us A Flavour selection 2 multipack that I got on a Spotted On Star Buys promotion. As one of the varieties I’d really wanted to try prior to purchase, I couldn’t wait to see if I found it to be as good as Emma G's Chip Shop Chicken Curry.

The packet’s colour scheme matched its contents better than some of its competitors, with the brown and green reminding me of steak and peppers. The crisps were visibly tinted brown, too, by the powdered Scottish Aberdeen angus beef that was used in conjunction with smoke flavouring in an attempt to achieve the desired taste.

Bizarrely, the crisps actually smelt like vegetables! There was a tiny hint of meat too but, if I’m honest, I wasn’t really convinced or impressed by the aroma – it just didn’t seem to quite work in this format. However, I love fajitas (although I don’t eat them as often as I’d like!) so I still wanted to see how the taste compared...and they were actually pretty authentic! I could pick up aspects of both steak and peppers in the flavouring, and there was a very slight ‘kick’ in the mix too. It was just a shame that the sour cream and shedloads of cheese – which I think are essential for good fajitas – weren’t flavours that were included in the overall experience. Furthermore, I sometimes felt that the peppers were simply masking the taste of standard roast beef crisps. However, I was impressed by the juicy aspect of the meat which I thought was quite unique in this type of product.

Texturally, there was no change from Walkers’ usual high standards, so I was left feeling that this was a nice enough packet of crisps...just not sensational.

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 5.5/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 8/10
Overall score: 7/10

Lu Glico: Mikado (white chocolate)

Product name: Lu Glico: Mikado (white chocolate)
Purchase details: £0.69 for a 70g box (Tesco Superstore)
Calories: 11 per 2.3g biscuit
Country of origin: UK

Ah...Lu Glico: Mikado (white chocolate). Regular readers won’t be surprised to know that I’ve always preferred these to the milk chocolate version.

These ‘biscuits coated with white chocolate’ (55%) were made by Mondelez and came in a cream box. The overall concept was the same as the milk chocolate but, in terms of appearance, the ‘wonderfully creamy white chocolate’ provided a much paler colouring, particularly against the inner biscuit.

The aroma combined a mild but creamy white chocolate with rich tea biscuits, and the resulting taste was basic but delicious – the pretty thick chocolate was really sweet and milky but the biscuit’s flavour was also stronger than normal, and this was lovely too.

The texture was also as crispy and smooth as ever and so I thoroughly enjoyed this guilt-free snack.

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