Frantic Festivities!

Well I hope that like me by now you have Christmas pretty much wrapped up! Sorry about that pun but I have just literally finished my wrapping and quite proud of the parcels beneath the tree. I know it seems like I've left it to the last minute but have no fear I spread my workload over the last week. Meaning no rushing and panicking at the last minute, in theory.

In reality I was having to frantically finish a few of them due to running out of paper and doing a mad dash down town before they shut. Seems I wasn't the only one too as I had a hard time finding any suitable paper. Luckily I found a few Disney themed rolls that were just about gender neutral enough to do for everyone. But at least now it's done and I can relax indoors and take shelter until the boxing day sales are well underway. Much safer especially when you factor in the town shaking weather we had last night.

Festive feces... I mean faces, festive faces

Now I am safely inside I can curl up eat some treats and tell you about them. I have a fair few too. We have biscuits, chocolates, bread and pies. I know a hectic post for you today, but it is the festive season and I thought I'd make the effort. So without further ado the first item is a McVitie's festive face. The reason for this is that on returning I was in desperate need for Tea and therefore a biscuit too. I wasn't expecting much from these if I'm honest, really I only bought them because they scared/amused me. They are pretty much BN's (if you remember those!) I think but with the shape of a jammy dodger. Basically a double copycat and fiend then. They taste like the old BN biscuits too, the biscuit base and lid is a vanilla tasting rich tea type affair and the jam and cream taste sweet and chewy. They aren't bad just a bit boring, to me at least. Let's face it the only reason people liked the BN biscuits was because of the advert and the chocolate version. These have neither and their expressions are terrifying!

This will forever haunt my dreams!

Next American chocolate with a Reeces snowman and Christmas tree and a Butter fingers coin. The tree and snowman are the same as the Pumpkin version I reviewed for Halloween. Delicious Reeces milk chocolate covering a beautiful peanut butter paste. A perfect mix of sweet and salty as always. The Snowman is a beast too, I had expected him to be like a hollow Easter egg but no it is all chocolate and paste no air at all. By the time I finish this I'll be so full I won't have room for turkey. Seriously though this thing weighs 141 grams and is nice to see dedication from a company. The Butterfinger coin achieves a similar balance but the milk chocolate isn't quite so sweet. The peanut in this is also small crispy flakes of peanut paste that creates the effect similar to a chocolate bar with cereal pieces like crunch. But with a great nutty taste to it.

All looking rather... cool

Now we visit Italy in the form of a traditional festive treat called Pannetone. Which is a fruity bread similar to Brioche or a hot cross bun. As I bit into it I found it a bit hard and dry but this soon changed as I began to detect the fruit that was mixed in. The taste as I say is very similar to other fruit breads with orange seeming to be the dominant flavour. The combination of fruit peel and raisins gives it a nice texture mix. It goes really nicely with some tea and coated in butter.

Lastly as you can see this has been a long post, it has been a bit of work for me and I now need something to fortify my nerves. Which calls for alcohol and in particular a festive liquor, Brandy. Thankfully MrKipling was kind enough to oblige in these deep fill Brandy mince pies. Now as I have mentioned I'm not a fan of mince pies, especially when they arn't homemade. But these are different enough to peak my interest. They arn't too bad but still suffer from the soft waxy pastry problem that mass produced pies have. Aside from that though they taste pretty good. The Brandy isn't too sharp and the filling isn't too sweet. The flvours mix to some extent not amazingly however.

Overall it's been a hectic day and a hectic challenge. With one final post before completion I'll be glad when I ca stop eating tinsel!

Score
Festive Faces - 4 out of 11
Reeces - 9 out of 11 plus 1 for effort
Butterfingerz - 8 out of 11
Brandy Mince pie - 6 out of 11

Found 
Festive faces in Poundland
Reeces and Butterfingerz in American import stor (although the snowman was Tesco)
Brandy mince pies in Sainsburys

Final Thoughts
I'm so full of merriment it hurts, damn yuletide!

Reece's Peanut butter cups minis and miniatures.

               Is big really better? Surely quantity is preferable to size too? Okay before you readers get the wrong impression I should perhaps explain. After all you might get the wrong end of the stick.

           

I am of course talking about sweets as usual, what else could I possibly be talking about? Honestly get your minds out the gutter people. No, I'm talking about two miniature versions of full size favorites of mine. These items are mini Reece’s pieces cups in both milk and white chocolate varieties.

          

  I can't tell you how excited I was when I found these, other than saying I may have let out a little squeal. However it was a very manly man squeal I can assure you. This was immediately followed by me practically throwing them in the basket and skipping to the checkout. See how manly that is. Before we look at the source of most of my excitement (the white chocolate cups) I will first look at the milk chocolate. I'm attempting some kind of buildup.

            

Sometimes, for some reason when companies change the size of their products they somehow change the taste. Usually it has detrimental effect. Perhaps the use of usually is a bit of a spoiler about my feelings towards these products. Indeed these are great, perhaps better than the usual Reece’s peanut cups.

           

Maybe because it’s more compact thus making the flavor seems more intense. For they are. When I popped one into my mouth I find these to be much stronger in flavour. It still maintains the usual sweet milky and fudge-like chocolate that tastes amazing especially when combined with the peanut paste. They definitely taste better to me than the usual cups; clearly a difference in displacement makes a real difference. Perhaps because you’re taking in the full experience at once that makes it better.

           

Now on to the White chocolate caps, these have two added bonuses before we even get to the taste test. (Not that there is any competition here, they are after all brothers... or sisters, siblings basically) The first benefit is that they are slightly bigger than the others, yes I'm a hypocrite and secondly they come in friggin foil and paper cups!

            

Right at this point I'm going to draw your attention to my post where I talk about expectations. That’s what I thought when I took my first bite into these babies. It has the same almost sickly sweet white chocolate as usual cups and the regular bitty peanut paste. Yet somehow it didn't taste as good as my favorite big cup variety. Then I took a bigger bite, and boy was I wrong. The shift in size has allowed for a slightly larger block of nutty goodness and creates a more intense flavor hit.

          

  Overall bigger is definitely not better as both of these products show. So yeah, don't judge on size people. 

Score

Milk cup - 7 out of 11

white cup - 9 out of 11

Found

Milk cup found in Tesco and White cups found in ASDA.

Final Thoughts

I think I've been rather contradictory in today's post sorry, blame excitement.

Lemon and Slime- bad pun time!

Ok, so yesterday proved two things. One that I have built up a rather impressive stash of Halloween treats for you guys. Two thankfully I can and will be reviewing several of them in one post from now on in order to catch up with myself. Today we have two items that have both been waiting for their time in the spotlight for a while and deserve to be heard.

They are both however Halloween varieties of Halloween items so sadly I’m not expecting much from either of them. Although both have some differences that may make a difference but nothing unique or new on show here. That seems to be a running theme at the moment; it’s a great opportunity for a company is Halloween. We don’t care about the holiday enough over here to justify totally new ideas, so brands can just alter their packaging to suit the season and little else.

Bit disappointing the plain outside!

Thankfully with Christmas we are a bit pickier and new products seem to arrive, or old ones reappear that get the dust brushed off them when the festivities take them. For instance Cadbury snow bites a chocolate treat I love but only get to experience once the snow starts a dropping.

The first item up today however is something I don’t actually mind they don’t change too much as I love the regular item anyway. It’s a Reese’s Peanut Butter Pumpkin, it’s by Reese’s so I already know I’ll love it and the less they mess with their formula the happier I am. As soon as I take it out the packet I’m a happy undead bunny (if I were alive it might be too much like Easter!). I’m greeted by a lovely chocolate and peanut butter aroma and the chocolate on the outside is slightly melted and gooey, both are very good signs.

Though the sheer amount of filling makes up for looks

I snap it in half to judge the chocolate to peanut ratio is on offer here and I am surprised instantly. The peanut butter seems to make up the majority of this much thicker than their usual cups. My mouth starts a watering at this and I can’t keep myself from it for too long. I bite in and find the chocolate has great fudge like texture although a disappointing lack of flavour. This is made up immediately however by the amazing as always peanut butter. A lovely nutty sweet, yet salty taste that takes over the chocolate flavour immediately. No wonder with such a thick slab too, it’s not been blended too fine either so you get tiny little nutty bits for added texture.

It’s good but I’m not sure it’s up to their usual quality and nowhere near as amazing as my favourite white chocolate cups. I think they have definitely sacrificed some of the chocolate quality and quantity here. On the flipside the peanut butter is better and more than usual so it kind of balances out. At least they haven’t scrimped on quality too much here. One thing I am slightly disappointed about however is the lack of design on the item itself. I was expecting a jack-o’-lantern type face to be on the surface but unfortunately it’s rather plain.

Impromptu photographic skills required in the field

The next item I have is a festive edition of much loved Jaffa cakes. By the way in case you wondered these are definitely cakes and not biscuits as many believe (Biscuits go soft when stale, these like cakes go hard #science). These are quite a cool idea as these Halloween editions have a different flavoured jelly, instead of the normal orange we have lemon and lime (sorry SLIME, get it) on offer here. McVities are really impressing me with the effort they are making towards Halloween as there digestives yesterday did well too. These taste great the new flavour really compliments the basic formula well and the flavour seems to have infused with the sponge. I hope this isn’t a passing visit as I’d like this to become a regular variety. Having said that if it did it would make the product no better than the other products I chastise for not changing.

Overall I was happy with both of these products, although if we are honest the Reese’s was the same basic cup but I didn’t complain because of favouritism. Secondly my thought on the new flavour becoming available all year round would create the problem I complain about. Can we ever truly be happy?

 Score

Pumpkin- 6 out of 11

Jaffa CAKE- 8 out of 11

Found

Pumpkin is from a local sweet shop that sells American sweets, the Jaffa Cakes I got from Sainsbury's but are widely available.

Final Thoughts

Wow I am a bit of a hypocrite this week aren't I?