Macarons!

Hello all, it's been a while. Let me share with you the most popular sweet treat going around at the moment. The phenomenon of macarons! They've been around for two hundred years but in the past few years they have become a mainstream trend.

The popularity of macarons in Australia comes from the rise of Adriano Zumbo and his zumbarons. The first time I saw them I really wanted to try them but it wasn't until a week or so ago that I managed to get my hands on some.

So I made the trip down to Albury after I discovered Geoffrey Michael Patissier. It was worth the drive, I got these home and after looking at them for a while I decided to try one.

It's hard to express how I felt when I first bit into one. I didn't know what to expect from these colourful biscuits, I knew they were made from almond flour but nothing prepared me for the texture I experienced. The biscuit component itself has a type of crisp shell on it that gives way to a light and fluffy interior that almost seems to melt in your mouth but then it becomes delightfully chewy and has a satisfying mouth feel. They are unlike any biscuit I have ever eaten, such a paradox of textures.

The flavours were another thing again. The flavour of the biscuit is sweet but it's in the filling where the true flavour kicks in. Ranging from ganache to cream, the flavours are so delicious that I had a moment of wonderment when trying each of these flavours. The flavours were apricot, salted caramel, lavender berry, vanilla bean, choc hazelnut and strawberries and cream. It's hard to say which flavour I enjoyed the most, the lavender berry was an interesting one, never had lavender before, it was really nice. The salted caramel one was very distinctive, this flavour is something that's very popular right now and I enjoyed it. They were all amazing and I have trouble remembering each one in detail because I was in a state of bliss while I was eating them.

I am slightly ashamed to say that I ate every one you can see in the photo in one sitting. I meant to just try one of each but I couldn't stop and they were so light and cute I just munched them all. They're not cheap either so I felt a little guilty although it was such an awesome moment I can't regret it. Macarons rule!

Peanut Toffee Cookie Marvellous Creation

This one is a really bold statement as far as flavour goes, and it is my favourite of the three marvellous creations, let's take a look.

Starting with the chocolate, it's that distinct Cadbury flavour but it's actually a minor player in the flavour profile of this product, one of the major players is the peanut which has been dry roasted and only slightly crushed. The cookie portion adds a lot of texture to the pieces and is a nice vanilla flavour but the real secret to why I like this flavour is the toffee.

I've been seeing salted caramel used in a lot of things now and wondered what the fuss was about, but in this marvellous creation I understand why. The toffee has a distinctive saltiness that balances perfectly with the rich flavour of the peanut and the sweetness of the chocolate, plus it adds a third texture to the chocolate pieces which makes every bite different. Delicious!

So much going on in this bar and I enjoy eating it. I do buy this fairly often, I will talk about the third flavour at a later date and the problems arising out of using certain types of products in chocolate.

Hot Fudge Sundae Poptarts

Hi there, it's been quite a while since I've posted but I hope to post more frequently from now on, so here's my first one, Hot Fudge Sunday Poptarts!

I was quite excited to try this flavour because they are part of the Ice Cream Shoppe series which is related to the Rainbow Cookie Sandwich which I loved. These are frosted unlike the Rainbow ones and as I've said before the frosting doesn't really do anything for me, it hardly registers as you eat them.

Anyway, now to the delicious part, the filling! This is what I was looking for, great flavour, a sweet vanilla taste yummo.

Now to something I learnt while eating the first of these poptarts, the chocolate pastry doesn't really work. It seems a bit bitter and a little bland, maybe it would be easier to eat if the pastry was a little softer or maybe it just needs to taste a bit better. When eaten with the filling, the casing tastes nice, but the corners weren't as nice.

Overall I'd say it's a nice poptart, but I prefer the plain pastry which gives the filling the focus in the flavour profile.

Shorties!

Hi there, these have been out for quite a while, but I saw them in the shop today and remembered how good they are.

Biscuit shorties from Cadbury, these are part of a product line that are mostly minaturized versions of regular products like Flakes (soo good), except for these ones lol.

These are quite addictive, great texture too, the chocolate is the distinctive flavour of Cabury. The secret lies within the shortbread style centre. The centre is light for shortbread but still quite rich with a vanilla flavour, delicious!

On the more expensive side in that the bags are around 150g (165g in this case) for the same price as a regular block, but they're worth it for a nice change. A bag of these won't last long lol.

Sweet Wishes from Tim Tam

Unless your'e Australian you may not realize how much of an institution Tim Tams are. Original Tim Tams I may discuss in the future, but today it's Double Choc Caramel, oh yeah.

I'm a big fan of caramel, and these biscuits don't disappoint when it comes to a hit of caramel flavour, delicious!

Where to start, firstly you have the chocolate on the outside very nice, good quality chocolate and the fact that its 'doubled' means that it adds a really nice cool smooth texture the the Tim Tam. I heard a guy who works in the factory say that it takes less power to make the double Tim Tams because they don't need to blast them with a fan to get the texture of the original lol.

Now, the caramel in the centre is tasty and a nice caramel hit, but it's with the biscuit itself where this becomes a great Flavour.

The biscuit is a well balanced caramel flavour giving the overall Tim Tam a more restrained richness then you would imagine making them easier to eat without the sickly sweet feeling.

Good good.

Mini Drops

Hello, when I saw these advertised the first thing I thought was mini eggs for ever! Not quite in this instance but still an exciting new product in Cadbury Mini Drops.

I didn't know what to expect really when I opened these, but I was still surprised at how small these are, about the size of an M&M except in a raindrop shape. They have a glazed surface like Smarties and contain Cadbury chocolate. Really fun to eat, colourful and delicious!

Having said that, eating them one by one, unless you concentrate, you don't get the distinctive Cadbury taste, not sure why but it still tastes good, maybe the chocolate has less cocoa solids in it I don't know.

The shell is sweet but not very thick so it doesn't add any flavour or texture, just colour lol.

Very addictive, I had no problem finishing these off. I'll probably get these again though they are a more middle priced, good good.

Cadbury steps up

Well, it looks like Cadbury has been busy thinking up new ways of presenting chocolate, this is great! I mean block chocolate is good and there are a ridiculous amount of varieties but more innovation is just what the block world needs, and with the new Marvellous Creations range Cadbury has made an exciting offering.

The first variety I have tried is this Jelly popping candy beanies. A mouthful to say and a mouthful to eat! The first thing that strikes you about these new blocks is the irregular pattern. I forsee many disagreements over who got how much lol, most pieces are roughly the same size but some are larger. Also the pieces are quite deep and have different textures on top so it's nothing like eating a normal piece of block chocolate.

Now, the flavour, the chocolate is always nice with it's distinct Cadbury taste, the jelly pieces are like small soft strawberry flavoured gummi beans and they stand out in the flavour profile, they do get into your teeth a bit though which can detract from the chocolate. The beanies are like Smarties and add a crunchy texture, but the real fun is in the popping candy which are similar to Pop Rox. The candy doesn't add any flavour really but turns the eating of chocolate into a new experience that's more fun and frivolous, probably not for the die hard chocolate traditionalists but I like it. Delicious!

A strong opening, there are two or three other flavours which I will take a look at in the future.

Pods - new varieties

Hi, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself talking about new varieties of Pods before talking about the classics, but we'll do it this way anyway lol.

Pods cherry bites, these aren't totally new, but they are a newer edition to the Pods family. As I have said before, I'm a real fan of the cherry flavour, this interpretation of cherry flavour is a more natural version to what you usually get, it's quite nice, mellow.

As with all the pods, the crispy shell thing adds great crunch and even some flavour. These are the darker variety shells to complement the more complex cherry flavour. The chocolate on top plays an equal role with the flavoured centre completing the overall taste.

In conclusion these are very nice, quite a change from the regular flavours and good for a point of difference.

Now these are the go, they haven't been out long. Honeycomb pods are delicious! This is a case of the filling winning and fortunately it's a good enough flavour to carry this variety, it is a super sweet honey flavour that is quite strong.

Being a pod it has that crunchy shell which seems a bit lighter in flavour than the cherry ones, the chocolate is good becuase it brings down the sweetness to mellow the honey out.

I would probably prefer these ones over the cherry but they're both good.

Chocolate fudge poptarts!

Hi there, long time no see, let me make up for that with some more awesome sweetness.

Frosted chocolate fudge poptarts. I don't really need to say more to say that these would be great.

But they are! Delicious! So it seems that another evolution of the poptart was different pastries for each flavour. Back in the 90's I remember that the pastry was always the same but with different filling. I guess it add a bit, where I really noticed it was with the Smores variety, the pastry wasn't quite as tasty as you would expect simulating a Graham cracker I guess, but it didn't work for me. Where it did work was with Rainbow cookie sandwich, that pastry was soo good simulating a cookie, but that's not a regular pop tart as I have explained previously.

I would say the pastry of the Chocolate fudge is acceptable lol, it tastes like chocolate but warming than in the toaster gives a slight bitterness to the pastry, it doesn't bother me much, they're still nice, but I wouldn't mind too much if they were in regular pastry.

The frosting, hmm, as I've said before it doesn't really add much, the white things go all over the place lol, visually appealing I guess.
 

The filling. That's where the flavour is, gooey, chocolatey and flavoursome, you really do need to heat these up to enjoy them the most. I enjoyed these poptarts very much.

Wizz Fizz cones!

Hi, it's always fun to eat things that are usually reserved for children, usually because they are ridiculously artificial. This is a pretty good example.

These were around when I was young lol and they haven't changed much. Vanilla marshmallow covered in 100s and 1000s caps the cute little wafer cones, it goes down a fair way, then you hit the sherbet which is always a surprise no matter how many you've had. The sherbet tastes tangy and slightly fruity and it's very fine so be careful not to breathe in when you hit that layer.

Eating these is quite fun, the marshmallow is fresh and soft and the wafer cone adds a nice texture. Then of course you hit the sherbet which is fun and a little messy, the cone contains it pretty well and allows you to get a good bite of sherbet as well as balancing the flavour of the sherbet, I will buy these again.

 In conclusion, delicious!

Strawberry pop tarts (faith restored)

After trying the S'mores flavour, I was hoping Strawberry might have some answers and it did.

Delicious! The strawberry filling is good as you would expect, but I think the secret is in the pastry, it's not as heavy as S'mores. The pastry also tastes lighter and allows the flavour of the filling to take the lead, a nice strawberry hit, tastes like jam, very good, strawberry is always good.

Frosting. Again, I'm really not sold on it but at least in this case it's pretty lol. In this case the little multi-coloured bits are fun to eat when they stray, the flavour of the icing is lost with the filling so I guess it's just for fun. In conclusion, this is what pop tarts are about, good times. Here's a bonus shot from the first time I tried them.

Lindt chocolate

Hi, I'm a big fan of chocolate. I eat mostly milk chocolate, occasionally dark, but I also like white chocolate as well.

Today I am looking at two Lindt chocolate products, Milk Hazelnut and White with Almonds. Lindt is made in Switzerland so you know it's going to be good before you even start.

First we shall discuss Milk Hazelnut.

This is some high quality stuff, nice rich chocolate flavour, quality hazelnuts very nice. The block is more delicate than a usual block making eating the pieces a more enjoyable experience especially if the chocolate is cool (not cold) which is how I like it. While it's more expensive than other brands, it's nice to have a change, and sometimes you can find it on special. I always have my eye out for this chocolate, very nice!

And now for my favourite of the two, White with Almonds, but there's also bits of toffee strewn in there as well, delicious!

You may notice when you're eating white chocolate it tastes a bit bland or like eating a sweet lard or something lol. That is not the case here, with a nicely balanced, sweet, milky, very smooth white chocolate, great flavour. The toffee pieces add bursts of flavour to the mix and as with the Milk Hazelnut, the nuts are high quality and add the perfect crunch. The design of the block also enhances the experience.

I would recommend Lindt chocolate for flavour and quality, even though it's more expensive the niceness is worth it.

pop tarts S'mores flavour

Hi there. I've never had an actual s'more, after researching them they sound quite nice and ridiculously messy. They are basically a block of chocolate and a layer of marshmallow sandwiched between buscuits called Graham Crackers which are a sweetned version of a traditional biscuit. Cooked over campfires somehow.

In researching what flavours of pop tarts I should buy, S'mores flavour kept coming up, they sounded nice too and they are nice but...

This is an example of trying to do too much I think, there's too much going on to get any distinct flavour. I'm not sold on the frosting either, it doesn't really make too much of a difference. Let's look a bit closer.

I tried them straight out of the packet and it was then that I realized you really do need to heat pop tarts up to enjoy them the most. So the next time I toasted them. I could tell straight away that it was better because I could smell them.

So, the flavour. You can see where they're coming from but you can only get a hint of the marshmallow, any flavour is overidden by the pastry really and as I've said before the frosting doesn't really add any flavour at all. The chocolate tastes more like a fudge than pure chocolate, I don't know, but I do know there wasn't enough of it. I think if it was divided 50/50 rather than stripes, you could get a better appreciation for the flavours.

I just think to is a step too far, it's been a while since I've had pop tarts so maybe they have changed and get less filling now. I have two more flavours to try, Chocolate Fudge and Strawberry, hopefully they will be more satisfying in that the flavour will be straight forward.

Jelly Belly flavour review #1

Hi, as you may know, I received an order of various items. Some of them were 100g bags of Jelly Belly jelly beans that I had chosen. I chose 9 flavours in all, my ultimate mix consists of 20 but more on that later...

One flavour we have already looked at, the Ice Cream Parlour mix, very nice. I will discuss the other eight now. Are you ready?

First one is...

Toasted Marshmallow. Very very nice, one of my favourites from this selection actually, tastes just like it says, quite a mellow flavour, I eat two beans at a time to get the full flavour impact. These make it into my ultimate custom mix for sure!

Cream Soda. The word I would use to describe this flavour is subtle. I was expecting a stronger flavour from this type, it tastes more sweet than anything, a bit of vanilla possibly. They're nice but don't quite make it into my ultimate custom mix.

 
Caramel Corn. Hmm this flavour doesn't quite mix with the other flavours very well. I'm not sure if it was the batch or the recipe but it was a little off the flavour you would expect. It's like they took the buttered popcorn flavour with sweetness added, it doesn't work till you've started to get your head around the flavour. You can taste where they're coming from eventually. They don't play nice with the other flavours so wouldn't be in my ultimate custom mix.

Bubblegum. Delicious! The flavour is similar to the original style bubblegum but a bit sweeter. A very nice flavour and very refreshing to the palate, nice strong hit of bubblegum too. These make it into my ultimate custom mix because of the strength of the flavour.

Strawberry Cheesecake. Very nice, a mellow strawberry hit, but they don't stand up to the flavour of Strawberry Sundae from the Ice Cream Parlour mix. I enjoy eating these, but they are better two at a time. These don't quite have the flavour to make it into my ultimate custom mix.

Very Cherry. Oh yeah, I love cherry flavour, and these beans have got it just right. This is one of the first flavours ever made by Jelly Belly and still popular, it is with me. It's hard to explain what the cherry flavour tastes like, slightly medicinal totally artificial just awesome. These naturally make it into my ultimate custom mix.

Candy Floss. Another one of those subtle flavours, nice but you need two to get the flavour going. I guess I shouldn't have put too much hope about these ones having a strong flavour because fairy floss doesn't really have much flavour to begin with. Like a very subtle but super sweet bubblegum flavour. Not bad but they don't make it into my ultimate custom mix.

Tutti Fruitti. When I was growing up Mum used to buy toothpaste that tasted exactly like these beans. I just so happen to like the flavour alot, so it doesn't bother me every time I eat these ones I think of toothpaste. Very fruity, very artificial flavour, just how I like it. Plus they are one of the most attractive beans in the Jelly Belly collection. They mix very well with the others and the flavour is very strong. These make it into my ultimate custom mix with bells on.

So, that's eight of the 50 plus flavours of Jelly Belly beans you can find. Hope you enjoyed it, I'll be back with more flavours in the future.

pop tarts Ice Cream Shoppe

Oh yeah, pop tarts, always good. I remember I used to eat them fairly often in the 90's, but they haven't sold here for ages. I ordered these in.

The ones I used to get were pretty plain. just the filling and the covering pastry and that was enough. It seems the pop tart has evolved slightly and now has some sort of topping like 'frosting'. I'll get back to you on this subject later as I have a different one to discuss.

What I would like to discuss is the debate on whether you need to need to heat them up at all, and after my experience with this type and another type I have learnt something. If you were to ask me before this I would have said 100% heat them up all the time, (the pastry and filling need to heat up to improve the flavour of the pastry and the performance of the filling) but this flavour breaks that rule with delicious results! (And after experimenting with another flavour not heated up, I would say that Ice Cream Shoppe is the only flavour that's nice straight out of the packet.)

This type is not quite your common pop tart. For a start the pastry isn't as thick as a normal pop tart meaning it's already quite pliable when you pull it out of packet. The filling is the key to why you can eat these straight up though, it tastes like white chocolate or vanilla and it's consistency is like warm nutella. Delicious!

Putting these in the toaster makes them harder to handle and doesn't add anything to the experience. As I've said the filling is already soft and the pastry is really more like a cookie as the name would suggest so it really is like eating a thin cream filled cookie. There's a swirl of chocolate 'frosting' on top which gives a slight flavour boost but is more for show I think. I'm going to get some more of these.

In conclusion, yummy, rule-breaking pastries!

Jelly Belly Ice Cream Parlour

 Hi there, it's been a while, but I have a lot to share with you. I ordered some stuff that you can't really get in the stores in Australia and I was very exited when it came.

In this one I will be talking about a product from Jelly Belly called Ice Cream Parlour. There are five flavours to be found including Chocolate Chunk, Strawberry Sundae, Birthday Cake, Apple Pie and Chocolate Mint.

I have to say, every flavour is delicious!

As you would expect, the chocolate chunk flavour tastes great, like a chocolate brownie.

The strawberry sundae has a really nice strong strawberry flavour nicely mellowed by an ice cream undertone.

Birthday cake is a strange one, very nice, the flavour is sort of like a vanilla sponge cake as far as I can tell. I would need to eat a whole handful of just these at once to work out the flavour exactly lol.

Apple pie is delish. A nice mellow apple flavour, pastry flavours with a cinnamon overtone. This has to be one the most accurate flavour representations Jelly Belly make.

Last but not least is the chocolate mint, very nice, the mint isn't strong like chewing gum. As far as ice cream flavours go, this would be the one most similar to an ice cream flavour.

In conclusion, I would recommend these for trying if you want to get into Jelly Belly or have had enough of the 50 other flavours lol.

Skittles Crazy Cores

Hey there, today I would like to talk about the newish skittle product Skittles Crazy Cores. Regular skittles are quite good, one of the best lollies for making flavour combinations and are fun to eat.

 
They're taking skittles to a new level with this new range of flavours. Delicious! They've basically chosen the best flavours they could and combined two in each skittle together.

The flavours are Cherry/Lemonade (I love cherry flavour, more later) - Melon/Berry - Strawberry/Watermelon (Same with watermelon flavour) - Mango/Peach - BlueRaspberry/Lemon

Great flavour combos, really nice to eat, I will be eating these again.

Mini eggs!

Quite possibly my most ultimate favourite chocolate treat in the whole world! Mini eggs rule!

Ok, now I've got that out of my system, Mini eggs are a 'seasonal' product in that are only sold in the time leading up to Easter. For some reason they are getting scarcer every year probably because they would be trickier to make than regular eggs.

They are made by Cadbury, so the chocolate has that distinctive taste. It then has a 'candy' shell around it. Like a fine powdered sugar sprayed onto the egg. There's just something about that shell that turns a small lump of chocolate into a textural experience. I think the shell also holds in the aroma of the fresh chocolate because it tastes so much more flavoursome in these eggs. The colours are visually appealing as well, making these things super cute!

Delicious, delicious, delicious!

M&Ms Coconut

Hi. M&Ms. I went through a phase when I was younger when I ate the original type alot. These days when I eat an M&M I can't help but think the chocolate within is either too dark or not as high a quality chocolate as you would find in a block. As you know they come in peanut and almond, I'd like to see them try Macadamias with white chocolate.

These days I go for the Crispy M&Ms if I want some. They have a nice texture and balance the chocolate out a bit. I saw these the other day and thought I would try them.

I'm not sure what I was expecting from these Coconut M&Ms, maybe white flavoured chocolate, but it was the milk chocolate variety. They taste pretty good, quite addictive, they just feel too easy though. They've basically added coconut essence to the normal mix, it doesn't have any type of coconut feel. On the whole a novel alternative for regular M&Ms if you eat them regularly.

While I'm here let me just say if you see any White M&Ms you should seriously try them cause they are delicious! I couldn't get enough of them when they were out, I'm not sure they are anymore, but anyway.

Twisties!

Twisties are nice. They are like a quality version of a cheese puff of cheezle like thingy. The two main flavours are Chicken and Cheese. I prefer chicken but I like the cheese ones too they are probably tastier.

What prompts me to write about them now is the two new flavours I have tried over the past few weeks. Unfortunately they are limited editions, one of the flavours I would eat all the time.

The first I would talk about is these..

Twisties Cheeseburger. They pretty much taste exactly how you think they would, pretty nice, the Twisties themselves were quite small, I'm not sure whether that was the batch or they were made like that. I prefer larger Twisties probably cause I can eat them more easily lol.

Now this flavour got me going. Twisties Spicy Burger. They're delicious! Great BBQ type flavour with a tangy twist. Very nice! The Twisties were larger to which made them more satisfying to eat. Definitely my favourite of the two, and I would eat this flavour regularly if they were permanently on sale.

In conclusion...Will I ever see this flavour range again? Will I ever see this flavour range again?