Review: Ananda's Marshmallows

Melting vegan marshmallows in a wide range of flavours. We recently reviewed Ananda's vegan Waggon Wheels and promised a follow up with a review of their marshmallows. We picked up three flavours from Ananda's online shop - Strawberry Dream, Choca Mocha, and Lemon Crunch:

Review: Vegemite

In honour of Nottingham being full of Australians for the Ashes Test last week, we thought we'd review Vegemite. There aren't many Aussie vegan things we could think of besides Vegemite (any thoughts?). You'll either love or hate Marmite, but have you even tried Vegemite?

Review: Ananda's Round Up! 'Waggon Wheels'

Vegan Wagon Wheels or Vegan Moon Pies for US readers. Ananda's is an artisan confectionery producer based in Derbyshire. They mainly make marshmallows, which is probably why they chose to make Wagon Wheels, with their marshmallowy middle. How do they compare to the ones you may remember?

Review: Nakd Crunch Bars

Strawberry Crunch, Banana Crunch and Cocoa Crunch fruit and cereal bars. We have to confess that we're not big fans of the regular Nakd bars, which are a little 'textureless'. We're glad to see the company has now brought out some more exciting bars with added crunch:

Review: Jus-Rol Pain au Chocolat

Vegan pain au chocolat that you bake from chilled dough. We recently reviewed the bake-at-home croissants that Jus-Rol produce and thought we'd better follow up with the even more enticing looking Pain au chocolat rolls. You get 6 rolls, in a box that has a very good shelf life if kept in the fridge - long enough to keep in on stand-by for a lazy Sunday morning...when you eventually get one.

Review: Soreen Banana Loaf & Lunchbox Loaves

Banana flavoured fruit loafs from malt loaf maker Soreen. Full size banana loafs plus mini 'lunchbox loaves' in the same flavour. If you're a lover of malt loaf, that dark squidgy, moist fruit loaf, you'll know that Soreen isn't vegan. The company stubbornly refuses to change the recipe to omit the milk, but whenever they diversify, such as with these banana loaves, the ingredients are usually dairy-free:

Review: Mrs Unis' Naan Bread

Dairy-Free naan bread from Scottish producer Mrs Unis. It's hard to find vegan naan (or nan) bread, as the recipe usually includes yoghurt in some form. Tesco 'Light Choices' mini naans are vegan, but they're not great, so it's good to find some authentic ones:

Review: Clif Bars..Fudge, Chocolate...Peanut Butter...

A selection of the tastiest vegan Clif energy bars in 'Chocolate Almond Fudge', 'White Chocolate Macadamia Nut' and 'Crunchy Peanut Butter' flavours. Helpfully illustrated with a chap climbing a cliff. We didn't have a handy cliff and so reviewed these tasty sounding bars with both feet firmly on the ground:

Review: Tesco Finest Peruvian Chocolate with Coconut

A chocolate bar with coconut, but not a Bounty bar by any comparison. This is 60% dark chocolate made with single origin Criollo and Trinitario beans, with coconut flakes blended into the chocolate. Ten skinny pieces of chocolate in an immaculate looking slab of Tesco's finest. 

Review: Tesco 'Free From' Banana Smoothies

Dairy-free coconut milk smoothies with banana, apple and passion fruit. These fruit smoothies from Tesco are labelled just as 'banana smoothies', but coconut features more prominently on the packs. The fruit content is actually mostly apple, followed by banana and little bit of passion fruit:

Review: Tabasco Spicy Chocolate

All American chocolate with a kick. We found this in the US imports section of a big Tesco. Not a lot else was vegan (although something from Reeses coming shortly... don't get your hopes up, it isn't peanut butter cups). This tabasco chocolate comes in a tin, like a shallow tobacco tin, and inside there are 8 wedges of hot pepper chocolate:

Review: Vive Soy Range of Soya Milks

Spain's biggest brand of Soya Milk, now in the UK. Vive Soy launched earlier this year in Tesco with six flavours. Unusually, the range includes chocolate and cappuccino flavours in full size cartons. We thought we'd take an overview of the full range:

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:

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).

Review: Sweet Vegan 'Try Me' Marshmallows

UPDATE: Sweet Vegan are now trading as Marshmallow Deli

Taster pack of assorted vegan marshmallows from Nottingham producer Sweet Vegan. This is a great way to sample a selection of the marshmallow flavours that Sweet Vegan offer. Vanilla, Chocolate, Coconut, Strawberry and Banana came in our pack, although you may get cherry in yours.

Budget Vegan: Hills Cream Sandwich Biscuits

Digestive Creams, Orange Creams, Chocolate Creams... 4 packs for a pound! These are the cheapest biscuits we know of, but they're one of our favourites. Hills Biscuits are sold in Nisa stores at this bargain offer price...mix and match any four packs for a pound. Avoid the custard, coconut and strawberry creams which all contain dairy, but take your pick of the others:

Review: Vantastic Schnouggi Nougat Bar

Hazelnut 'nougat' bar from Vantastic Foods. Firstly, a German lesson: Nougat means something different in Germany than it does in the UK/US and France. German 'nougat' is what we call 'gianduja', in other words sweet hazelnut chocolate. This is a mini bar of gianduja: