Review: Vantastic Foods Vitali Cereal Bars

Chocolate-banana flavoured crispy cereal bars from German producer Vantastic. These came from Vegan Tuck Box (we promise to diversify our sources soon...!). We hold the view that cereal bars fall into two camps - worthy and healthy, or sugary and tasty. These fall into the latter group, as high energy snack bars:

Review: Whole Plus Hot Pots - Vanilla Spice

Vegan snack pot / porridge / instant breakfast - just add hot water. This is a great idea in a sector where many other instant breakfasts have dairy ingredients. Whole Plus make this range of three varieties of Hot Pots in Vanilla Spice, Cinnamon and Chocolate Boost. We got the Vanilla Spice one from Vegan Tuck Box.

Review: Cocoa Loco Hot Chocolate Spoon

Fairtrade luxury hot chocolate serving in dark choc 'n' mint flavour. This is an unusual format for selling hot chocolate - a chunk of real chocolate with a wooden spoon embedded in it. This arrived with the January Vegan Tuck Box:

Review: Raw Nibbles Double Chocolate Brownie

A raw chocolate dairy and egg-free 'brownie' made with organic cocoa, dates and agave syrup. This arrived in the January Vegan Tuck Box. The company Raw Nibbles is a Suffolk-based artisan producer, who have a small range of raw food goodies available online. This isn't a brownie in the traditional sense:

Review: Provamel Spelt Milk

New dairy-free milk option made with organic italian spelt and very little else. Spelt grain is closely related to wheat and is considered a cousin of modern wheat varieties. It does contain gluten, for those on the lookout. This spelt milk is made with just spelt, water, sunflower oil and salt and is unsweetened. It sounds a bit 'hair-shirt', but we like to try new things...so you don't have to...

Review: M and S Espresso Coffee Dark Chocolate

72% cocoa and 1% coffee in a slab of chocolate from Marks and Spencer. The speciality 'Chocolatier' range at M & S includes coffee, mint and chilli. This coffee bar is made with ground coffee for an espresso kick:

Review: Greens Quick Jel

Gelatine-free jelly, made and set in 30 minutes. Greens Quick Jel has been on the market for years, and the recipe on the pack is straight out of the 1970s... fruit flan. It's more versatile than that though, and as a widely available vegan jelly, it deserves a Veganoo review:

Review: Beyond Dark Chocolate Drops

Dairy-free Orange, Raspberry and Plain chocolate in mini-button drops. For lovers of strong dark chocolate. These 70% drops have had new packaging since we first reviewed them last year. The heart-with-horns motif is gone and the tagline is now "Moments of Pleasure". The dark drops remain the same, joined by the orange and raspberry flavours:

Review: Biona Caramel & Chocolate Syrups

Organic agave syrups with dairy-free caramel and chocolate flavours. Joining Biona's plain agave syrup on the shelves recently are these pair of flavoured syrups. They're both billed as 'rich and mellow' and aimed at 'pancakes and desserts'. The difference between these and cheap sugar syrups, is that Agave makes up over 80% of the contents in both cases, meaning that they keep their Low GI status:

Review: Iceland Cherry Bakewell Cones

From the Iceland 'Party' food range. Thanks to the Vegan Womble for the tip off. We know we're late with this one for the party season, but our local Iceland had sold out of these when we first heard about them. You can still find them in Iceland stores at £2 for 14 if you want to try them for yourself, or just read on for our thoughts...

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:

Review: D and D Chocolate Chips

A big bag of dairy-free chocolate chips for baking. D and D Chocolates produce a range of dairy-free carob and chocolate goodies, including fondants, bars and seasonal chocolates. The Siesta brand is part of D and D. This 350g bag of chocolate chips is dairy-free, gluten-free and nut-free and is made with a mild 55% dark chocolate which even kids will enjoy.

Review: Really Not Dairy - Roasted Garlic Mayo

Leftover tofurkey in need of a lift? Roasted garlic egg-free mayo might be the answer. Global Bounty are a new UK company with several 'free from' product lines. Their Really Not Dairy range includes yoghurt-style desserts and this range of mayo alternatives. The mayo comes in Original, Chipotle and Roasted Garlic flavours. The garlic flavour might be ideal for perking up your Christmas leftovers:

Review: VBites VegiDeli Chicken Style Pieces

There's no coincidence that we reviewed these on Christmas Eve last year. Even if you're not into faux meat for the rest of the year, Christmas seems to be the season for tucking into tofurkey and vegan chipolatas. If you miss turkey and chicken since turning vegan, there are a few good options for your fowl-mouthed cravings, like these Vbites Chicken Style pieces:

Vegan Christmas: Coop Liqueurs and Mint Thins

Vegan 'after-eights' and chocolate liqueurs from the Cooperative. The Coop couldn't decide if these were vegan, so we've decided for them (see below).

Vegan Christmas: VBites Cheatin' Turkey Style Roast

Meat-free festive roast. Have you got used to saying VBites instead of Redwood Yet? The Cheatin branding lives on at least on the company's faux meat range. Outside London, you'll find it hard to get hold of exotic (and expensive) US products like Tofurky or Field Roast, so we thought we'd review a long established offering from these shores. Is this Turkey Style Roast something you could look forward to for your vegan Christmas dinner?

Review: Morrisons Free From Millionaires Shortbread

New recipe caramel shortbread, with gluten-free base and faux milk chocolate topping. We reviewed Morrisons previous version of this shortbread last year and came away unimpressed. The new recipe was mentioned in the comments section of our old review, so we sought out the new version to see if it's any better:

Editor's Picks: Best Vegan Products of 2013

This has been an exceptional year for vegan produce. As we hit mid-December, we guess there'll be no new launches this side of Christmas, so it's a good time to pick out the best stuff we've reviewed this year. From sausages to cheese, chocolate to ice cream, read on for the Editor's picks of the best vegan products of 2013.

Guest Review: Blueberries does Divina Teresa 'Provencal'

Photo courtesy of Divina Teresa (serving suggestion)

Part 2 of our guest review of Spanish firm Divina Teresa's products. This time Blueberries is looking at the Provencal range of chicken style products. Read on for her thoughts on breadcrumbed fake chicken goodness and ketchup!

Review: Zero Zebra Safari Party Chocolate

Not strictly Christmas chocs, but ideal as a stocking filler. This pack of 10 dairy-free chocolate figures is available in the Christmas section at Holland & Barrett and also in independent health food stores. We reviewed Zero Zebra's chocolate bars earlier this year. This box is aimed more squarely at kids.

Vegan Christmas: Plamil Dairy Free Chocolate Snowmen

A bag of faux milk chocolate chunky snowmen from vegan producer Plamil. The company are getting better at presenting their products and this festive foil bag is quite appealing. Inside are small but chunky solid chocolates.

Vegan Christmas: VBites Turkey Style, Leek & Blue Cheezly Bites

Festive sides / nibbles in the VegiDeli range from VBites (formerly Redwood). We're not quite sure what these are replacing, but they're bite-sized hot nibbles made from soya, with turkey and blue cheese style flavours. Should you feed these to your guests, at your festive drinks party?

Review: Taifun Tofu-Wieners

Smoked vegan hot dog sausages made from tofu. We're working our way through all the brands of vegan hot dog sausages available in the UK. Taifun's Wieners are one of the longest on the scene, pre-dating Frys, Viana, Vegusto, Plantbasedfoods and maybe even Redwood (VBites). Taifun's smoked tofu won our tofu Taste Test, but does 76% tofu make a good wiener?

Vegan Christmas: Choices Chocolate's Santa Sack

Vegan 'selection box' of dairy-free chocolates... without the box. Last year we bemoaned the lack of vegan selection boxes, so we put our own together from Go Max Go bars. This year, Choices (Celtic Chocolates) have stepped up to the plate with a festive Santa Sack of goodies. You get 180g of choccies from their faux-milk chocolate range:

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.

Vegan Christmas: Ikea Tangkorn Vegan Caviar

Impress your party guests with vegan canapés topped with faux caviar. Ikea is not the first place you'd think of for vegan food, but they have occasional gems in their food shop. This 'seaweed topping' sits next to the cod roe on the shelf, but the display label clearly indicates that this is a 'pure vegetarian' alternative to caviar. What do you do with it though?

Vegan Christmas: Hazer Baba Turkish Delight

Why is it we only buy this stuff at Christmas? Maybe because it's only stocked at Christmas. This brand of Turkish Delight is currently on sale at Lakeland, as well as at discount supermarkets. Finding good Turkish Delight that's also vegan is difficult. Does this stuff make the grade?

Guest Review: Blueberries does Divina Teresa: 'Atlantic'

From Spain comes leading veggie meat company Divina Teresa. The company are considering a UK launch and asked us to review just some of their huge product range. We asked Barcelona-based blogger Blueberries of VeganButNotScary to do the honours for us. She kicks off with the company's 'Atlantic' range of Fingers, Burgers, Wonders and Delights:

 

NOTE: The star ratings are not working on Internet Explorer 11, so we've put the score in brackets. You should be able to see them fine in Chrome / Firefox / Safari until we fix it.

Review: Raw Bite Bar - Spicy Lime

Fruit and nut snack bar with citrus and chilli. Vegan Tuck Box supplied this bar as part of their sample box of treats, which we reviewed last week. It's a brand we haven't come across before or seen in the shops at all. These bars are not cereal bars as they have no grain ingredients, but they're  a similar type of snack bar made from purely fruit and nuts. The texture of this style of bar is often dull, so can the spicy lime flavour perk it up?

Vegan Christmas: Reutter Chocolate Creams

It's mid November folks... the Christmas reviews begin. Dark Chocolate Coffee Creams, Orange Creams, Strawberry Creams and Mint Creams from the Pound shop, made by German firm Reutter. These are a pound a box for 150g (18 chocolates)... at that price, they can't be any good..?