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:

Review: Schlagfix Coffee Whitener

Liquid dairy-free coffee creamer in a mini carton from German firm LeHA. The company produces a range of non-dairy creams and whiteners available throughout mainland Europe. Veganstore have begun selling the coffee whitener here in the UK, along with their spray whip cream (review coming soon!)

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:

Veganoo's Flickr Photostream

Flickr has had a makeover which makes it very appealing. You now get an entire Terabyte of photo storage space for free - that's pretty amazing. If you're on Flickr, check out our photostream - all of our headline vegan blog photos get fed to Flickr:

flickr.com/veganoo

New: Hobnob Choc Chip Biscuits

McVitie's Hobnobs have long been vegan and at one time Plain Chocolate Hobnobs were vegan too. That's no longer the case, but these new Choc Chip Hobnobs are a great alternative. They use a plain chocolate recipe that doesn't include dairy fat. Oaty Hobnobs full of lovely dark chocolate chips. Somebody put the kettle on!

Review: Sojade Riz Strawberry Cassis Dessert

Rice milk yoghurt/dessert with strawberry and blackcurrant. Sojade Riz is a line of rice based desserts for those who want to avoid both dairy and soya. These desserts are chilled, and look very similar to the Sojade soya desserts, but are quite different. The flavours available are Apricot, Mango/Passionfruit and Strawberry/Blackcurrant. We picked up a twin pack of the latter flavour for our review:

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).

CHEESEBOARD: Vegan Cheese Taste Test

Part 2 of our big vegan cheese review. 11 dairy-free cheeses, one cheeseboard. We've got together 11 brands of vegan cheese on sale in the UK and put them to the Taste Test. In Part 1 of the test, we saw how well they melted, and how they tasted hot. Now we're looking at how they compare when eaten cold. 

Review: Venchi Extra Dark Hazelnut Chocolate

Italian chocolate with Piedmont hazelnuts. Venchi have been making fine chocolate since 1878, so they should be rather good at it. Many of their products are still hand made using artisanal techniques, and that could explain the price. This is expensive chocolate at nearly five quid for 150g. Is it worth it?

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!