Hellish Halloween Hamper

Right I'm back from the mystical Isle of Wight, slightly earlier than I had hoped but safe at least which I guess is what matters. I almost didn't make it! I could have been stuck there for eternity without hope, without escape and without internet! It doesn't bear thinking about really.

The reason I had to rush home is that if you believe the weather reports the UK is about to be blown away by a coming storm. Considering how I needed a ferry to return home I thought it would be best to beat said storm, turn tail and run. I don't feel like a sissy because at least it allows me to bring more reviews to you my adoring

fan (no plural needed).

I seem to remember before leaving that I'd do a bumper review in return for my absence so here we go. This could get quite intense hope you can keep up!

First up lets consider some cookies, I have a terrible trio here for your delights. Another pumpkin shaped ginger biscuit from the folks at Costa coffee. Now it wasn't too bad but a bit bland and lacking in fire as usual. Nowhere near as bad as This, but certainly not as good as This. The biscuit itself was overall nice however the incing has no taste in itself and is a bit hard. When dunked it added a little sweetness but little else.

We have a chocolate cookie from Morrison's with a weirdly worried looking marshmallow skeleton. It has a nice chocolate hint to it and tastes quite fresh despite not being part of their freshly baked range. It dunks really well and the chocolate is brought out quite nicely when it's slightly damp. The marshmallow is a nice chewy offering, good level of sweetness and a subtle hint of vanilla. 

Lastly we have a cool idea from McVities in these snaptastic biscuits. basically one big chocolate digestive that you snap into individual characters. The chocolate layer is good quality and tastes superb with the dreggs of my coffee. The biscuit underneath is nicely oaty and has it's own distinct flavour once the chocolate has melted away.

With the biscuits and their crumbs brushed under the carpet let's have a blast from the past in the form of the last treat from Mark's and Spark's. These are called Super Scary Skulls, basically little jelly sweets. When I pulled one out the bag I was slightly unnerved as they have a weird ancient Mayan look about them in my opinion and one of the freakish things I've tried so far. I popped it in my mouth regardless and was pleasantly surprised. They taste rather nice, a good subtle blackcurrant and raspberry taste to them. Not too sweet and definitely not artificial tasting. I was disappointed that the jelly inside wasn't runny as it was the impression I got from the packets description.

The last product in this bonanza is some weird little chocolate critters. I can't actually remember where I found these however I'm afraid, clearly more of an impulse buy than usual. They are kinda cute although they lose points for using redundant cardboard just to add to their design. The chocolate itself is quite nice not quality as I clearly got these from a cheap store somewhere. They have the look and smell of advent chocolate and my tummy turned at this thought. However when I actually tried one  I found it tasted rather nice. Not amazing quality by any means but nicely chocolaty and milky, it didn't taste like sweetener or additives which is always nice.

Overall most of these Halloween goodies are good. Clearly my brief and slightly shortened holiday weekend has subdued my cynical and critical side. Now how will I write reviews, The world sucks like that doesn't it!

Score

Costa Biscuit- 5 out of 11

Morisson's Skeleton- 6 out of 11

McVitie's gang- 8 out of 11

Jelly skellies- 7 out of 11

Creepy critters- 5 out of 11

Found

Numerous places some I don't even remember!

Final Thoughts

I'm tired out, still have a lot of stock left too!

Fish are friends, and FOOD!!

A few months back America celebrated national Smores’ day, I had heard of these treats before but never really paid much attention. Until now I mean these things must be amazing if they have a whole day dedicated to them, right? Also you literally make them yourself and in only a few seconds they sound perfect. Mine weren’t and all my attempts would probably make a veteran Smorer roll their eyes in disgust.

I don’t feel fully responsible for my failings however as I believe my attempts were doomed from the get go. Firstly certain brands have become the go to products in their preparation. For instance graham crackers are needed. Over here we don’t have graham crackers so I used some plain biscuit cracker things I had found. Already a bad start and my Smoring hadn’t even begun. However it was those or Jacob’s cream crackers and that would have been much worse I’m sure. Next I was cooking mine on a hob inside, when I understand Smores’ are to be made round campfires along with ghostly tales.

 

A nice display of the three varieties and their cheerful expressions.

Ok so perhaps I’m clutching at straws in my excuses but the thick of it is I just got into a gooey mess. A tasty gooey mess, but a mess regardless. One thing that did come out of my slightly obsessive phase was finding a packet of Pepperidge farm smores fish type biscuit things? These are small fish shaped biscuits that the packaging suggests you stack into three layers emulating a traditional smore. The packaging and characters are rather charming and the biscuit bites are cute enough to feel slightly guilty as you chomp on them.

The three different types of fish found in these bags are plain cracker, chocolate cracker and that marshmallow type stuff you get in Lucky Charms. Essentially these are three different tasting crackers stacked on top of each other, not very appealing to read but they did work in some way. However stacking them proved rather fiddly due to their small size so I soon gave up and ate them individual (I’m no fun at all am I?).

 

My attempts at stacking was on par with the pros

My favourite one was the plain type it was nice and crunchy and had a great oaty taste to them that you don’t find in large biscuits let alone mini bite size varieties such as these. The marshmallow ones are a bit weird for me, being rather chewy and not very nice on their own. I used these mostly with my morning cereal and with ice cream so they ended up with their uses don’t worry. Lastly the chocolate ones were a bit of a mixed bag (pardon the pun). As they don’t have enough of either a chocolaty flavour or oaty taste to make them stand out.

In the end I don’t really see the point of these biscuits myself other than a cute novelty. They are too small to dunk in a drink and too fiddly for their purpose. They are nice but you kinda need to eat them by the handful in order to detect the flavours. You also get a lot in a bag and no matter how I stored them they still wen stale before I had finished.

Look how happy it looks in it's magic circle of protection!

Overall these are nice but probably could do with being both bigger in size and smaller in packaging, like maybe mini snack bags like you get with Ice Gems. Also one problem with eating them individually is I ended up running out of my least favourites’ first and my favourite one’s going stale.

Score

6 out of 11

Found

Sweet Heaven store Bluewater

Final Thoughts

Their smiles will haunt my dreams forever in guilt.