Review: Hotel Chocolat Selection

In the vegan range - Pistachio Crunchies, Gianduja Bombe, Marzipan Ingots. Hotel Chocolat's range is ever changing, but helpfully they label their stuff as vegan, so it's quick to find something dairy-free. We picked out three packs that caught our eye:

Veganoo's Flickr Photostream

Flickr has had a makeover which makes it very appealing. You now get an entire Terabyte of photo storage space for free - that's pretty amazing. If you're on Flickr, check out our photostream - all of our headline vegan blog photos get fed to Flickr:

flickr.com/veganoo

New: Hobnob Choc Chip Biscuits

McVitie's Hobnobs have long been vegan and at one time Plain Chocolate Hobnobs were vegan too. That's no longer the case, but these new Choc Chip Hobnobs are a great alternative. They use a plain chocolate recipe that doesn't include dairy fat. Oaty Hobnobs full of lovely dark chocolate chips. Somebody put the kettle on!

Review: Sojade Riz Strawberry Cassis Dessert

Rice milk yoghurt/dessert with strawberry and blackcurrant. Sojade Riz is a line of rice based desserts for those who want to avoid both dairy and soya. These desserts are chilled, and look very similar to the Sojade soya desserts, but are quite different. The flavours available are Apricot, Mango/Passionfruit and Strawberry/Blackcurrant. We picked up a twin pack of the latter flavour for our review:

Review: Sojade Chocolate / Vanilla Desserts

Dairy-free creamy vanilla and rich chocolate desserts from French firm Triballat. The company is behind both the Sojade and Sojasun brands, as well as some of Tesco's own brand dairy-free range. Sojade is their organic brand line, for sales through health food shops, and you won't find these in the supermarket. These twin pack desserts are new to us, so we gave them a whirl:

Review: Taifun Curry-Mango Tofu

Pre-marinated tofu with mild curry and sweet mango. Taifun make the world's greatest tofu, and they also won our tofu taste test. This is an unsmoked tofu, that's been marinated in lime juice, mango, curry spices, garlic and white wine vinegar. Marinated tofu has been in the shops for years, so is this  more of the same?

Gluten-Free Vegan: DS Digestives

Vegan digestive biscuits from DS Gluten Free. If you're avoiding wheat, but crave that wholewheat taste of a crumbly digestive biscuit, your choices are limited. These DS digestives use a blend of maize, soya, buckwheat and tapioca flour. No rice flour in sight... so does that avoid the grittyness problem?

Review: Goody Good Stuff Jellies

Vegan jellies, sweet and sour. Goody Good Stuff are an independent UK company launched in 2010, specialising in vegetarian sweets. Most of their range is vegan, and according to their marketing team they're also Fat Free! Meat Free! Dairy Free! Alcohol Free! Gluten Free! Egg Free! Nut Free! Soy Free! Wheat Free! and Gelatine Free! Most importantly, they sent them to us Cost Free!...but we won't let that influence our review:

UPDATE: Vegan Status - The eight packs we reviewed are vegan (see the ingredients panels at the bottom of the page). Goody Good Stuff have clarified which products contain beeswax, and the situation is complicated. Don't mistake Koala Gummy Bears for Sour Koala Gummy Bears for instance! The Goody Good Stuff website isn't very clear, and the packs are not marked as vegan, so use the following list that the company provided this morning (2013-05-17).

CHEESEBOARD: Vegan Cheese Taste Test

Part 2 of our big vegan cheese review. 11 dairy-free cheeses, one cheeseboard. We've got together 11 brands of vegan cheese on sale in the UK and put them to the Taste Test. In Part 1 of the test, we saw how well they melted, and how they tasted hot. Now we're looking at how they compare when eaten cold. 

Review: Venchi Extra Dark Hazelnut Chocolate

Italian chocolate with Piedmont hazelnuts. Venchi have been making fine chocolate since 1878, so they should be rather good at it. Many of their products are still hand made using artisanal techniques, and that could explain the price. This is expensive chocolate at nearly five quid for 150g. Is it worth it?

MELTDOWN: Vegan Cheese Taste Test

11 dairy-free cheeses, one big review. We've got together 11 brands of vegan cheese on sale in the UK and put them to the test - the Veganoo Taste Test. In Part 1 of the test, we see how well they melt, and how they taste hot. Next week we'll be looking at how they compare eaten cold. Pizza is the name of the game for the meltdown test, but which vegan cheese will come out on top...?

Review: MozzaRisella, SmokeyRisella, CreamyRisella

Vegan cheese, italian style. Three varieties of dairy-free cheese from Italian producer Frescolat. These three are all variations on classic mozzarella - a traditional one, a smoked version and a soft and creamy version. We've heard great things about these new vegan cheeses... read on to see if we agree:

Review: HESTON from Waitrose - Chocolate Sauce

Heston Blumenthal's weird chocolate sauce for Waitrose. Dairy-free isn't something we were expecting when we spotted this in a local Waitrose, but it sure is. The body of the sauce is based on wheat glucose syrup, and as well as chocolate, it's also flavoured with coffee. Don't for a moment think that means it tastes like mocha:

Review: Camille Bloch Torino Mousse Chocolate

Fluffy vegan chocolate mousse in a thin crispy chocolate shell... sounds like heaven? Despite getting a severe bashing at the hands of the postal service, this could be one of the best things to have arrived through our door recently. The bar consists of 8 chocolate domes connected by a very thin and fragile chocolate base... ours arrived from Vx in pieces, but at least the domes were intact: