Review: Shire Snax Fruit & Nut Bars

Scottish independent producer of gluten-free, wheat-free, & dairy-free raw snacks that are low in sugar. The Edinburgh company is run by Aaron and Mitch (Michelle), and they got in touch to offer us the chance to try some samples of their wares.

UK Review: Vegan Gourmet Cheese Shreds

Follow Your Heart's pre-grated vegan cheese has recently been more widely available in the UK, including in our home town of Nottingham. We grabbed a bag each of the Cheddar and Mozzarella flavours for our review. Is this another US import you should seek out?

Vegan Christmas: Elizabeth Shaw Gingerbread Crisp Chocolates

Limited Edition honeycomb crisp chocolates, perfect for the festive season. These dark chocolates are much more versatile than the mint ones, which are usually sidelined as after dinner chocolates:

Review: The Mighty Burger Co - Original Burgers

Bristol startup making gluten-free vegan burgers. We've been on the lookout for these since they launched earlier in the year, and this pack of two burgers arrived with the Vegan Tuck Box in November:

Review: Hraska Gluten/Egg Replacers

Yep, these mixes function as both egg and gluten replacers. If you think about it, egg and gluten both provide structure in baking, and Czech firm Hraska have developed products that do a similar thing. The UK distributor Bearsted Foods sent us two of the mixes for review - the Flour Mix and the Batter Mix:

Review: Amy's Kitchen Breakfast Sandwich

Vegan egg and sausage muffin. Egg-free, dairy-free, gluten-free. Frozen and ready to microwave for an instant hot breakfast. The marketing team at Amy's sent us a few of these to check out and they were snatched up gleefully! There really is nothing else like this on the market at the moment:

Review: PureFit Nutrition Bars

Vegan protein bars in Peanut Butter Toffee Crunch, Chocolate Brownie and Berry Almond Crunch flavours. 18g protein per bar, and gluten-free. We picked up these nutrition bars based on the delicious sounding flavours, but there are some good nutritional principles in there too:

Review: Lovechock Raw Chocolate Bar

Organic goji & orange flavoured 100% raw chocolate that arrived from Vegan Tuck Box. Four chunks of deeply dark looking chocolate, studded with pieces of goji and buckwheat (of all things to put in a chocolate bar). Dairy-free, soy-free and gluten-free.

Review: Xotic Deluxe Desserts

Dairy-free yoghurt-pot desserts with a base of coconut cream, from producer Global Bounty. These are uncultured (not yoghurt) long life (ambient) dessert pots with fruit flavours. From the same stable as the Really Not Dairy range of yoghurts and mayos, these are a soya-free option. The pots are sold individually and come in four flavours, three of which we chose to check out:

Vegan Christmas: Lazy Day Iced Fruit Cake

Individual slices of vegan Christmas cake, with or without icing. This gluten-free cake is perfect for Christmas although it's available all year round. If you don't want to spend a fortune on a large vegan Christmas cake, or bake and ice your own, this might be perfect. It will also give you something gluten-free to give unexpected guests with allergies.

Review: FRANK Snack Bars

Chocolate covered cereal/fruit bars in Orange, Blueberry, Oat, and Double Chocolate flavours. Frank Honest Snacking says the strap line. These aren't cereal bars in the traditional sense, but are similar to Nakd bars, made from blended fruit and cereal. They have a lovely thick dairy-free chocolate topping:

Review: Wicken Fen Carrot & Coriander Sausages

Gluten-Free vegan sausages made with soya...and 11% carrots. The Wicken Fen brand has been around in the UK for over 20 years, but seems to come and go depending on the weather. Currently stocked in Sainsburys as well as health food shops, the range includes falafel and various types of veggie sausage (not all vegan). The carrot and coriander ones are some of the very few vegan and gluten-free sausages you can buy:

Review: Eskal Wafer Rolls with Chocolate Cream

Gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free wafer tubes for ice cream. Eskal produce a range of free-from foods, some of which are certified by the Vegan Society, including these chocolate wafer rolls. We found them in an independent health food shop and thought they'd be great served with some dairy-free ice cream:

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: Choc Shot Liquid Chocolate

Versatile vegan squeezy chocolate for drinks, toppings and more. New from the makers of Sweet Freedom is a novel product in the form of liquid chocolate in a squeezy bottle. This blend of Sweet Freedom (fruit based sweetener) and cocoa can be made into hot chocolate, milkshakes and sauces, or used as a topping on ice cream, porridge or toast:

Vegan Easter: Moo Free Organic Easter Egg

Could this now be the archetypal vegan easter egg? The standard Moo Free faux-milk easter egg has quickly become a benchmark...widely available, reasonably priced and very good. Moo Free's version of rice milk chocolate is a favourite among vegans who will often name it as their first choice chocolate.

Review: Zero Zebra Rice Milk Chocolate Bars

An easter chocolate idea that isn't an egg. Faux-milk chocolate bars from Zero Zebra, a brand of Marthomi Allergy Free Foods from Germany. Each batch of these bars is tested for allergens to ensure they are completely dairy, gluten and nut free. The bars come in regular, rice crisp and strawberry flavour. We're reviewing the regular and strawberry flavours:

Vegan Pancake Day: Orgran Buckwheat Pancakes

Gluten-Free pancake mix. It's Pancake Day next Tuesday and we're reviewing some tasty vegan options, starting today with a gluten-free pancake mix from Orgran. The aussie gluten-free specialists produce two pancake mixes - a maize-based apple & cinnamon mix, or a plain buckwheat mix. We picked up the buckwheat mix as we thought it would be more versatile and set about making some crispy egg-free pancakes.

Gluten-Free Vegan: Sunstart Golden Crunch Cookies

Wheat-free shortbread biscuits from Northern Irish bakery Sunstart. The company makes it's own range of gluten-free biscuits and tray bakes, many of which sadly contain dairy. Sunstart also produce supermarket own brand Free-From biscuits for all of the big four. These golden crunch cookies aren't labelled as such, but are clearly very close in style to shortbread biscuits.

Gluten-Free Vegan: Against The Grain Berry Cookies

Organic cranberry and raspberry gluten-free cookies. Against the Grain are a Surrey-based firm producing a range of gluten-free cookies in five flavours. As well as Berry Delicious, there's Ginger, Almond, Chocolate Orange and Choc Chip & Hazelnut.  We picked up a pack of the berry flavour to see if they're any good.