Review: Venchi Extra Dark Hazelnut Chocolate
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:
Review: Popchips air-popped crisps
Not fried, not even baked... crisps that are air-popped and half the fat of regular crisps. We spotted these in a local wholefood shop and thought they looked great. With the calories we get through here at Veganoo, reviewing all these foods... lower fat is a relief!
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.
The Big Cheese: 11 brands of vegan cheese
The biggest ever vegan cheese taste test. Coming shortly on Veganoo. We've assembled a huge vegan cheeseboard covering 11 brands of vegan cheese available in the UK. The cheeses are Swiss, German, Italian, American and of course British.
The names can be confusingly similar if you're a new vegan... Veganic, Vegourmet, Vegusto, Vegerella, MozzaRisella, Tofutti, Teese, Sheese, Cheezly, Jeezini.., and SoyaToo. We couldn't get hold of any Daiya, but the Tofutti and Teese are American takes on vegan cheese.
We're going to be putting them to the ultimate Taste Test, or should we say taste tests... as they'll be tested for meltability and how they taste hot, as well as how they taste cold.
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:
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:
Budget Vegan: Giannis Ice Cream Cones at Aldi
Vegan waffle cones in 10 packs from Aldi. We've now found so many vegan ice cream cones that we wonder if there are any non-vegan ones anymore? These ones are the continental crispy waffle style cones rather than the wafer kind. We grabbed the dairy-free ice cream from the freezer and did yet another cone review. It's a hard life, dear reader...
Review: Go Max Go Thumbs Up Choccy Bar
A weird peanut praline with cinder toffee and chocolate concoction. That's the review done then. Oh you want more?
Budget Vegan: Burton's Jammie / Choccie Dodgers
Twin packs of Jammie Dodgers and Choccie Dodgers from Poundland. You've probably had a Jammie Dodger or two, but have you seen Burton's Choccie Dodgers? They're both currently on sale in Poundland in packs of two. Are either as good as you remember from childhood?
Review: Askeys Crackin Chocolate Ice Cream Topping
Vegan 'Ice Magic'... a hard-setting chocolate shell topping for ice cream. Just like Ice Magic, this is a chocolate sauce that you pour on ice cream that sets instantly to form a chocolate shell:
Review: Jus-Rol Croissants
Freshly baked vegan croissants...popped from a tube in the fridge. It's very hard to find vegan croissants, in fact this is the only option we know about, other than to make them yourself. This way is far quicker of course...the tube lasts for about 2 months in the fridge, and once there, you're only ever 15 minutes away from fresh crispy croissants:
Review: Lotus Caramelised Biscuits
The taste of Speculoos and the perfect biscuit for coffee. They've also been around since 1932. Lotus biscuits are the ones you often get as a complimentary treat in cafes when you order a coffee. It's handy to know that these are vegan if you're given one with your soya latte. They come in packs like this in supermarkets, but you're more likely to get an individually wrapped one in a cafe.
Review: Booja Booja Champagne Truffles
Rich, dark, dairy-free chocolate truffles with real champagne. "Everyone needs a little Booja-Booja now and then" goes the tagline, and we have to agree. These are not everyday chocolates and are pretty expensive, but for a special occasion or celebration, they're worth every penny.
Review: Free & Easy Dairy-Free Cheese Sauce Mix
Vegan cheese sauce powder for cheesy sauce in 3 minutes. At least that's what it says on the pack. This stuff has been around for years, but has recently been re-branded so we thought we'd give it a try. This isn't an 'instant' mix that you just add boing water to... you have to cook it in a pan. We made some up as a cheesy sauce for pasta to give it a whirl:
Review: Viana Picknicker Veggie Snack
Vegan meaty sausage snack, sort of a vegan pepperami. These are similar to Topas Space Bars - they're both meaty finger snacks, offering a flesh-free meaty hit while away from home:
Review: Biona Large Ravioli (Spinach & Leek)
Enormous egg-free ravioli from Biona Organic. Vegan ravioli are rare, especially large restaurant-sized ones such as these. These look like egg pasta at first glance, so you may have passed them by on the shelf, especially as they aren't even labelled vegan (come on Biona!). That nice yellow colour is in fact just turmeric, but it does make the fresh pasta look appetising:
Review: Viana Bratwurst Sausages
Thick, meaty, vegan sausages for frying, from TofuTown company Viana. A limited range of Viana products are available in the UK, and these sausages are one of the more common lines. Bratwurst are traditionally pork sausages, but these are naturally a blend of tofu and gluten:
German Vegan: Chocolate Coconut / Rum Truffle Bites
Kokos Flocken and Streusel Kugeln chocolates from Berggold of Germany. That roughly translates as 'coconut flakes' and 'sprinkle balls'. German supermarkets and drugstores are always stocked with cheap chocolates like these, and luckily they hardly ever use milk chocolate. The coconut ones are basically Bounty bites, while the sprinkle balls are a sort of rum truffle:
Review: Vegusto Luncheon Roll, Lyon-style
Slicing sausage from the Vegusto range of vegan meats and cheeses. We've been sampling some of Vegusto's range recently and the idea of a good slicing sausage appeals greatly. Lyon sausage is apparently a highly-seasoned smoked pork sausage with a bit of garlic, but we've never tried it so can't comment on authenticity. Let's review it as a versatile vegan slicing sausage:
Vegan Easter: What Egg did you get?
German Vegan: Pural Bio Bis Sandwich Biscuits
Germany is a great place to buy vegan groceries and we are lucky enough to have some brought over from time to time. Doppelkekse (sandwich biscuits) are popular over there and these organic ones from Pural are really good. They are like digestive biscuits sandwiched with the vanilla fondant you'd get in a custard cream:
Guest Post: Animal testing banned, but are we really cruelty free?
Guest blogger Karra Rothery looks at the EU ban on animal-tested cosmetics that came into force earlier this month. Originally published on Karra's blog http://karrarothery.blogspot.co.uk
11th of March will be a day to remember. A day that will go down in history for animal welfare. It was the day that any cosmetics that have been, or had their ingredients tested on animals, were banned from being sold in the EU. Hip hip hooray! Since 2004 companies in the EU were banned from using animal tests for cosmetics, however they were still allowed to sell them if they had been animal tested abroad. So now we have real reason to celebrate!?
Review: SoyGo Soy Creamer
Instant vegan coffee creamer / tea creamer. This is powdered creamer in single-serve sachets produced by Saving Opus One of Georgia USA. There have been several attempts to fill this gap in the market and none have yet been successful (anyone remember Soya Maid from Pritchitts, the makers of the ubiquitous Millac Maid?). Does this latest creamer finally give vegans a break from black coffee when away from home?
Review: Cosy Organic Teas
A range of vegan-certified organic teas from Beyond The Bean in Bristol. The teas come in 9 flavours ranging from English Breakfast, to green teas and fruity teas. Some of the range is Fairtrade certified. We felt like a tea binge, so we made them all at once, pointed our little fingers out and and set about tea-tasting:
Review: Redwood Smoked Salmon Style Slices
Vegan smoked salmon slices from the Redwood Vegideli range. We looked for these at Christmas but couldn't find them, and only recently saw some lurking at the back of a wholefood store fridge. Vegan smoked salmon is so ridiculous, this couldn't possibly work... could it?
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