NEW! McVities Banoffee Caramel Digestives (Waitrose)

Almost six weeks ago the best biscuit broadcast was made; McVities were set to release not just one, but two new caramel digestives. Hurrah! Apparently they weren't being subjected to any of this 'thin' nonsense either, and as a bonus McVities had opted for fabulous sounding flavours. Banoffee and coffee sounded right up my street -I'm guessing they must've read my cries for a full size cappuccino digestive 😉. 

The only trouble was... the new biscuits were playing an almighty game of hide and seek. I kept hunting for them, and even contacted McVities three weeks ago, who replied "the new coffee and banoffee caramel flavours will be in stores over the next few weeks and in major supermarkets over the coming months." Helpful. Cue the daily stalking of my local corner shops, which never prevailed. In fact it wasn't even me who found them, it was @productsinstores, who eventually discovered the banoffee variety in Waitrose yesterday. No exagerration, I was on my bike within ten minutes, I must've stunk of desperation. My local store had them in and thankfully, at £1.50, they weren't any more expensive than the standard caramels. Double win! 

"Milk chocolate digestives with a layer of banoffee flavour caramel."

I hoped that McVities had executed the banana flavour well. I mean banoffee caramel digestives sound delicious, and just the idea of dunkable banoffee pie was too good to resist. It's just that my recent experiences with banana biscuits haven't gone so well. Take the Party 'Jaffa cakes' for example, or these Julie's banana crackers that I brought back from Malaysia. Both were almost inedible due to the awful synthetic taste -although my dog seemed to enjoy the crackers. 

Thankfully McVities new biscuits didn't suffer the same fate. Yes the banana is synthetic, but it works well, reminding me a little of the flavour in Grenade's Banana Armour bar. The caramel layer is perhaps on the thin side, but there's enough of it to add texture to the wonderful wheat biscuit and to compliment the milk chocolate. 

 Despite not being a banana buff in the same way that I am, Bert adored these new biscuits too. In fact I might have to hide the rest of the pack....  I just wish Mars would be as brave and create a banana Twix. Anyone else with me on that?

10/10

NEW! McVities Jaffa cakes Chocolate & Orange Blondies (Morrisons)

I'm not sure that we can be friends if you don't like Jaffa cakes. In my books they must be eaten in one of two ways: 

1. Nibble off the chocolate, dunk the sponge in coffee and savour the orange jelly.

Or

2. Proclaim "full moon"... "half moon"..."total eclipse" in a silly accent whilst devouring the Jaffa cake in two bites. N.B. If you don't remember the iconic advert please google it so you don't make me feel old! 

I'm not sure either ritual can be applied to these new blondies though. McVities have also released chocolate jaminger* (sorry, Jamaican Ginger) cakes and chocolate brownies in the same range, but it was the Jaffas that took my fancy.

"Moist Sponge Cake with Orange Flavour Fruit Pieces, Dark Chocolate and an Orange Flavour Topping."

I love the combination of warm brownie/blondie with ice cream so jumped on the opportunity to try these with Tesco's Jaffa Cake ice cream; which incidentally I've fallen more and more in love with. Oh, silly me. Given the topping I'm not sure the squares would microwave all that well. Ambient blondies and ice cream it was then. 

The chocolate was very thin, there's no way I could even attempt to peel it off even if I wanted to. I'm glad I had the chocolatey ice cream to fulfil my fix. 

The blondie was an odd one. Surely for a blondie has to contain white chocolate to earn its name, or is that just my wrong presumption? I certainly didn't think it meant a dense, doughy, un-risen sponge cake devoid of flavour. The 'blondie' was so stodgy that it stuck itself to the roof of my mouth. Not pleasant. 

Don't even get me started on the 'orange flavoured fruit pieces'. Why not use an orange sauce, jelly or *real* orange pieces McVities? Why can't companies use the real deal in products? Argh, I can feel another peanut butter rant coming on. Anyway, the 'orange'  pieces are made from an unbelievable amount of ingredients: Concentrated Apple Juice, Concentrated Orange Juice, Sugar, Dried Apple Powder, Gelling Agent (Pectin), Lemon Juice Concentrate, Glucose Syrup, Antioxidant (Ascorbic Acid), Natural Flavouring, Acidity Regulator (Potassium Citrate)].

It pretty much had the texture of a sauce anyway, but I think you can make out from the photo below that it had sunk down to the bottom of the squares, which made the base all sticky. Taste-wise it was ok, but seeing as it only constituted 6% of the blondie it didn't make much of an impact.

I've made a lot of complaints in this review, but that's because I love my jaffas and I felt these missed the mark. At £1 for four they're cheap and cheerful, just don't expect too much from them.

5/10

*explanation of Jaminger here!

NEW! McVities Caramel Digestive Teacakes (ASDA)

McVities Caramel Digestives. One of the best British biscuits money can buy, with their robust wholemeal biscuit base, oozy caramel and chocolatey top -surely they are the epitome of tea-dunking perfection. I'm a bit of a McVities fan in any case, one of my first reviews was of their caramel slice in fact, a wonderful creation that has become a weekly staple in our house. With that in mind, imagine my glee upon spying their new Caramel Digestive Teacakes in ASDA today, priced at £1.

 

'Caramel flavour mallow on a wholemeal base covered in milk chocolate and caramel flavoured sprinkles.'

The pack contained 8 teacakes, which were as light as expected, and looked very attractive complete with perfect domes and caramel embellishments.

 

The casing cracked nicely, but it didn't taste particularly chocolatey, as the caramel elements beneath and above it had caused the flavours to fuse. I didn't have a problem with the caramel-chocolate hybrid however, as the combination worked well together -and after all the chocolate was never meant to be the star of the show.

 

The marshmallow shone through, billowy soft with a powerful flavour that was reminiscent of the delicious Cadbury Caramel ice cream. The experience was truly melt-in-the-mouth and I'd have quite happily eaten a bag of the caramel marshmallow by itself.

The biscuit base was a bit of a let down however, it was soft and lacked the bite that I expected. It wasn't unpleasant, and I'm sure if I'd have thought of it as a cake-like layer that I'd simply commented on its deliciousness.

Gosh, my review reads as if I didn't like the McVities Caramel Digestive Teacakes, and that's simply not true. I did enjoy them, they were just a little different to my expectations and I thought that the combination of flavours was pretty spot-on... I'd buy them again.

7/10