Review: Everfresh Bakery Fig & Orange Cake

Long-life organic fruit cake. Buying vegan cake off the shelf is still difficult...you can't do it in most supermarkets for instance. When cakes are vegan, they're often gluten-free too, which doesn't appeal to everybody. This range of cakes from Everfresh Natural Foods has gluten-free options, but most of the range is wheatflour based:

Review: Violife Flavoured Cheeses

Vegan cheese with Olives, Peppers, Herbs or Tomato & Basil. Greek cheese masters Viotros were the first to get a 5 star review for a vegan cheese here on Veganoo. Since the original cheese slices launched earlier this year, the range has expanded rapidly. We picked out four of the new flavoured cheeses for our review:

Review: Koko Milkshakes

Coconut milk dairy-free milkshakes in multipacks from Koko (formerly Kara). We love Koko coconut milk, and we've also sampled the chocolate version at various vegan festivals, so we were pleased to see these multipacks appear. Available in Strawberry and Chocolate flavours, oddly in different shaped packs. They're long-life and come with straws, but also have a tear-off corner if you have a glass handy:

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: Provamel Pouring Yoghurts

New from Provamel - breakfast pouring yoghurts in Natural and Vanilla. We've been searching high and low for these as they don't seem to be widely stocked as yet. These pouring yoghurts are unusual, as there isn't a great pouring yoghurt tradition in the UK. We have nothing to compare them to, but Provamel have their own high standards, so our expectations were high:

Bragging Rights: We're in The Vegg Cookbook!

Our Baked Frittata recipe made it to publication and as a contributor we've received a copy of the cookbook to review. If you've got a copy (rare in the UK!), we're on page 57. The Vegg is a vegan egg yolk powder that we reviewed when it launched last year. We developed the baked frittata recipe while reviewing the product...as there were very few Vegg recipes around at the time for us to test:

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: Joya Soya Natural Yoghurt

After reviewing the fruity flavours, we look at the natural yoghurt from Austrian producer Joya. This is a genuine natural yoghurt, with soya milk and cultures, but has just a little maize starch in there to thicken it. The Joya selling point is that their beans are organic and European grown, on their own home soil in Austria:

Review: Sainsbury's Choc Chip Peanut Butter

Crunchy peanut butter with dark chocolate chips in it. At least that's what the jar says. We'd describe it more as peanut butter with swirls of chocolate sauce in it...at least at this time of year anyway:

Review: Dobla Belgian Chocolate Dessert Cups

Chocolate cups in the style of 'cupcake cases' for ice cream. Fill them with your favourite dairy-free ice cream, soft fruit, custard, or whatever takes your fancy. These dessert cups are made purely from dark Belgian chocolate with a cocoa content of 49%. We dug out the ice cream for a special mid-week dessert:

Review: Chocolate Weetabix

From the official Weetabix vegan list - chocolate breakfast cereal with both cocoa and choc chips. These 'Weetabix with Chocolate' have recently been reformulated. The low sugar claims appear to be gone, and these are sweeter than before, but we won't hold that against them. So with Rice Dream at the ready - have you had your Weetabix?

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:

Review: Viana Bonanza Veggie Steaks

Meat-free 4oz steaks from German firm Viana. These are slightly spicy wheat/soy protein patties of 105g (4oz) each. You get two in a pack. They can be pan-fried or cooked in the oven, or even on the barbecue. We served some up with french fries and petits pois for a vegan steak-frites:

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. 

New: Joya Soya yoghurts arrive in the UK

The Austrian soy-dairy brand Joya landed on UK shores last month, with sales going live in Sainsburys. Produced in Vienna, Joya has been on the market since 2002 and is big in Austria, Germany and 30 other countries. The UK launch includes plain and fruity yoghurts, with plans to bring soya shakes over here too. We grabbed a fruity selection to see how they compared to our current UK favourites.

London Vegan Beer Fest: Saturday 13th July 2013

Tickets on Sale this Monday, 17th June at 9am. Limited to 200 tickets so get in early to avoid disappointment!

London Vegan Beer Fest is a boutique summer drinking event showcasing independent breweries making beer suitable for vegans. In 2013, the festival is taking place in the hall, chapel and grounds of the gorgeous St Margaret's House in Bethnal Green.

Review: Reese's Shell Ice Cream Topping

Chocolate and Peanut Butter ice cream shell topping from Reese's - the peanut butter cup makers. Vegans have to get their peanut butter cups from elsewhere, but Reese's Shell topping is dairy-free. You can top off your favourite dairy-free ice cream with this intriguing flavour shell:

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: