Today's Review: Cadbury Strawberries & Creme Pots Of Joy

Easter's out and summer's in, so Cadbury have switched their seasonal Pots Of Joy over to this strawberries and creme offering. From the spelling of "creme" you can probably determine that it is following the same lines as the Creme Egg Pot Of Joy, and indeed it is much the same. It consists of a layer of melted Cadbury milk chocolate, with a strawberry flavoured fondant centre.

The Creme Egg pots were nice enough, although in recent years I can't say my fondness for Creme Eggs has been what it used to be. I find the fondant quite sickly, and that's the case here as well. It's the same thick texture, but it also possesses a very sweet strawberry flavour, which is nice enough to start with, but then becomes pretty overwhelming. The whole of the fondant, then, is pretty sickly, and while the chocolate on top does an alright job of mellowing it out and providing a different flavour to work with, overall this pot did not bring me a lot of joy. It makes for an okay dessert, but I think I'll stick with the plain old Cadbury chocolate ones in future.

My rating: 3/5

Today's Review: Barny Forest Fruits

School lunches ain't what they used to be. I remember loading up on sweets and doughnuts from my school canteen, and it was a free for all as far as packed lunches were concerned. But now my kids are trudging through the education system, and there are rules now. Rules! Basically, the major rule is no chocolate, but it's a fairly general no junk policy. Now, I can rarely eat lunch without having at least some chocolate along the way, so it's difficult for me to provide my kids with a sweet snack that doesn't contain the good stuff. But hey, Barny bears are here to save the day. 

They're small, bear shaped cakes with a creamy filling, innocent looking and somehow able to fly under the no junk radar. Maybe it's that healthy looking grain underneath the logo. Barny has been around for a while, in chocolate, milk and strawberry flavours. But I spotted these "new" forest fruits Barnys in Poundland the other week, and figured it was a good enough point to leap in and sink my teeth into a bear.

Well, they're alright. I mean, as far as sponge cakes go, these are no Mr. Kipling, but they have a soft enough texture and a sweet flavour. It is a little bit on the stodgy, sugary side, but I think its small size works in its favour as far as that's concerned. As for the filling, that's pretty standard as well, a fruity jam that has a nice berry flavouring, but that too is a little sickly, and there's not quite enough of it to complement the sponge all that well. All in all, it's a decidedly average cake, probably good enough for the kids' lunch boxes, but I wouldn't serve them at a tea party.

My rating: 3/5

Today's Review: Magnum Double Peanut Butter Bar

I reviewed the Magnum Double Chocolate bar late last week, but failed to follow it promptly with this other bar that I tried at the same time. Yes, the Double Chocolate is not a lone wolf, you can also get your chocolate fix from this Magnum Double Peanut Butter bar, which takes after the wonderful ice cream of the same name. This bar consists of Magnum chocolate with chunky peanut butter and salted caramel in the middle. Sounded good enough to me.

The chocolate is top notch, I can't fault it. It's nice and thick, but gives way to the innards with a satisfying crack. Underneath is a whole lot of flavour, perhaps a little too much. The peanut butter is at the forefront, a bold, nutty taste embedded with peanut chunks. It is a little more peanut than peanut butter, but it still tastes good, so I can't complain. The salted caramel is a nice enough addition, but unfortunately it doesn't come through in the overall flavour that much. It was nice enough when I could detect it, and it added a nice smooth texture to the bar, but I think there just might be a little too much going on in this bar. This is still worth picking up while it's around though, very tasty.

My rating: 4/5

Today's Review: Pickled Egg

I went to a chip shop today, and recently I've been getting into the habit of adding a gherkin to my order, apparently pickle is my thing nowadays. But one thing I hadn't tried in the realm of pickling was an egg, and since this chip shop had a nice jar of them on the side, I figured today was the day to dive in and bite into a nice big, vinegary egg. 

I think there's always that fear of the unknown when it comes to pickled eggs. How long have they been sitting there? How many diseases are they harbouring? But why is that just reserved for the egg? No one question jars of pickled onions or gherkins, they're accepted the way they are, and consumed with vigour. So I decided to dispel all misgivings about the suspicious jar of eggs and just bite straight into it. I was greeted with an egg with a taste of vinegar. That's it, nothing untoward happened, I just ate a tangy egg. It wasn't bad actually, not quite in the realm of an onion or gherkin, but it was sufficiently eggy and sufficiently pickled. Sure, it doesn't have the drastic change in flavour you get from pickling a cucumber, but maybe sometimes you just want a vinegary egg, and this is what you should order. Not bad, not bad at all. 

My rating: 4/5

Today's Review: Häagen-Dazs Mango & Raspberry

Summer's almost here, so it's time to start breaking out the ice cream. Häagen-Dazs seem to be getting ready for the occasion, with a new fruity flavour hitting the shelves. I've had my eye on this one for a few weeks, and it finally went on offer, but I'm sure eventually I would have paid full price for this, as it sounded delicious. It is, quite simply, mango ice cream with raspberry sauce.

The mango ice cream is great. It's fruity, creamy, and has none of the chalky texture that you get with the fruit itself, just a great juicy mango taste. There's not really much I can say about it, it's mango ice cream that tastes like mango, it's really good. The raspberry swirl, sadly, is less pronounced. There's a fair amount of colour throughout the tub, but the flavour doesn't shine through quite as much as I'd hoped, so really it's more a mango ice cream with a hint of raspberry than a mango and raspberry ice cream. It's not so bad that the raspberry is so subdued when there's other good stuff there instead, but the ratios could have been a bit better. This is a great tub of ice cream to look out for in the coming summer months though, very tasty indeed.

My rating: 4/5

Today's Review: Captain America: Civil War

Another year, another onslaught of superhero movies. There are more now than ever, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe has consistently been my favourite. Now we're on movie 13 of the series, which is a lot for a franchise that started in 2008, but this one promised to shake things up. After the events of Avengers: Age Of Ultron, the Avengers find themselves under increasing scrutiny from governments worldwide, and find they may have to make compromises to be able to carry on functioning as a team. But with Captain America's old friend Bucky Barnes on the run, his loyalty gets in the way of diplomatic processes, and a rift forms between the Avengers who side with the Cap and those who believe in the more official stance, headed by Tony Stark. It's time for an inter-team showdown.

I don't think there's much use going into this if you haven't seen the other Marvel movies. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does require a lot of watching time to put in if you're a newcomer. The reason being is that this movie doesn't provide a whole lot of back story, it jumps straight into the action, and that is a very good thing. With all the constant new heroes and reboots in the cinema these days, movies tend to be a little too heavy on the origin story, but Civil War starts off kicking ass and continues to do so. There are many fight scenes, and with the massive ensemble of heroes on offer it makes for absolutely awesome viewing, they're wonderfully put together and still manage to introduce fresh elements despite already having so many fights in previous movies. 

Not all the Marvel heroes are in this one, but there are a hell of a lot, it's pretty much like another Avengers movie a mere year after the last one. Each character's story is progressed nicely, and the appearance from newly added Ant-Man is wonderfully done. All the actors have settled into their roles incredibly well, and the rapport between the Avengers is as good as ever. Aside from the already introduced heroes, some fresh faces appear, and the way they're introduced is great, light on the back story, but still providing enough to keep them interesting, and definitely setting them up well for the standalone movies they'll be starring in over the next couple of years. A certain red-clad hero was actually one of my favourite characters in the movie, and I'm looking forward to seeing what Marvel have in store for him. 

Characters aside, the story itself is actually pretty damn good. There's a pretty generic villain and some cliché twists and turns, but the main bulk of the narrative resides in the relationship between the Avengers themselves, and it's very well done, with the underlying plot helping to hold up the shifting dynamics. At the end of the day I don't think anyone would expect this to be more cerebral than your standard blockbuster, so all in all it's very well put together, and despite being pretty long, I was engaged until the very end. 

I was expecting a bit of a lull in between main Avengers movies, while the individual characters got their own stories, but Civil War is pretty much like a third Avengers movie, it's action packed, full of great characters, and it's simply awesome. My faith in the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues.

My rating: 5/5

Today's Review: Goodfella's Sweet Fella's Apple Crumble Pizza

I reviewed the Goodfella's chocolate brownie pizza last year, and while it was a pretty neat idea, it didn't come together all that well, the toppings were alright, but the base left a lot to be desired. I've had my eye on this new iteration for a while now, but I was waiting for it to drop in price before I snatched one up. This is the same principle as the original, it's a dessert pizza, but this time it's topped with apple crumble. 

Doesn't look quite as good as it does on the packet, especially those little burnt bits in there, and they were already there before I put the thing in the oven. But hey, looks aren't everything, this is all about the taste, and I figured there's not much you can get wrong with an apple crumble. Turns out this is actually a pretty decent dessert. The topping is just right, a generous smattering of juicy, sweet apple pieces, and a nice buttery crumb, mixed in with yet more apple from the sauce it's all embedded in. I can't fault it really, it taste just like apple crumble. As for the base, it's pretty good, not perfect, but it made a better impression on me than with the chocolate brownie. I don't know if they've improved the recipe, or whether it's just more suited to the toppings this time around, but I found it to be a nice soft dough with a slight pastry-like texture that works very well with the crumble topping. The crust gets a bit too hard and stodgy, but the stuff in the middle is nice. 

This apple crumble pizza is a marked improvement on the chocolate brownie. I was a bit disheartened going into this, but I was pleasantly surprised. What's next for Sweet Fella's? I wouldn't mind finding out.

My rating: 4/5