Review: Vantastic vegan white chocolate spread

Continuing with our dairy-free white chocolate theme for this week, today's review is Vantastic white chocolate spread. You'd use this in the same way as nutella-style spreads....on bread or toast. The German spread is available online and has a long shelf life thanks to a good proportion of fat and sugar. What's immediately odd about this stuff is....it has no chocolate ingredients whatsoever...

Taste Test: Best Vegan White Chocolate

A choice of three dairy-free white chocolate bars is another sign of how vegan options have improved lately. Not too long back, non-dairy white chocolate was a novelty, but now Sweet William, Plamil and Organica are battling it out for your custom. As we like to do here at Veganoo, we unwrapped the three bars and put them to the Taste Test.

Review: Provamel Intenz Desserts

Long established organic brand Provamel has only recently made its way into the chiller cabinet in the UK. Their Intenz range of desserts are similar to their UHT range, but are sold as fresh and found in the fridge. The two pack desserts are available in chocolate and vanilla. Does the move from shelf to chiller improve the already great taste of Provamel's desserts?

Vegan Camping Food: Wayfarer Review

It's camping season...the mosquitos are feeding, and hungry vegans are too. If you're travelling light, but you want to take more than some dried TVP in your backpack, then Wayfarer's pouches might be the answer. The boil-in-the bag ready meals come in lots of varieties, of which the vegetable curry and the spicy vegetable rigatoni are animal-free. The advantage over tinned food is not so much the weight, as the convenience of the tough but malleable pouch shape...and no washing up....

Live from Leicester Vegan Fair 2012

A sunny Saturday in Leicester and the place is packed out for this year's vegan fair. Read on for our blog of the day's events.

Taste Test: Best Smoked Tofu

The next time you see a recipe calling for smoked tofu, ask yourself...which sort? The British style of smoked tofu...rubbery, coarse, bitter? Or the German style, ranging from the dry and tough to the moist and ham-like. You see, there are as many types of smoked tofu as there are producers. There is no accepted norm for what you'll get when you buy some. As to the question of quality, frankly some are better than others.

Review: Primal Strips Vegan Jerky

Recently arrived from the US, these vegan jerky strips come in a whole range of flavours. Some are based on soy and with others made from shiitake mushrooms. The shiitake ones contain wheat gluten, but the soy ones are labelled as gluten-free. Although there are vegan pepperoni-style snacks available in the UK, these are the first widely available vegan jerky strips we know of. We picked up the Hickory Smoked, Texas BBQ and Hot & Spicy strips for our review.

Gluten-Free Vegan: Prewetts Jammy Wheels

Gluten-Free recently 'beat the wheat' in our recent vegan ice cream cone taste test, so for this review we're doing it again...putting these gluten-free 'jammy wheels' up against wheat-based jammie dodgers. Both packs of biscuits (cookies for US readers) are vegan of course. The Prewetts biscuits are based on gluten-free oats and are slightly more 'wholemeal' looking than regular jammie dodgers. Can oats beat out wheat this time too?

Review: 3 Uncle Japanese Style Mochi

If you're not familiar with mochi you're missing out. The japanese style glutinous rice cakes have an unusual texture and come in a whole range of flavours. The term mochi covers a wide range of glutinous rice cakes, and the sweet-filled ones such as these are 'daifuku' mochi. In the US you can find mochi ice cream balls, even vegan ones, but sadly not in the UK. What we can get here are brands such as 3 Uncle (from Taiwan) who produce several vegan types of mochi.

Review: Taifun Herb Grill Sausages

The German word 'grillen' is the equivalent of 'to barbecue' in British English, but 'to grill' in US English. In the US 'to barbecue' is to cook more slowly, which has no equivalent in the UK...it's something Brits don't really do. To compound this linguistic confusion, 'to grill' in the UK is the same as 'to broil' in the US. No wonder there is some doubt as to what Taifun mean with their English translation of 'Grill Sausages'.

The Vegg vegan egg yolk. The Review

Few new vegan products are greeted with the enthusiasm that has embraced the arrival of The Vegg - the vegan egg yolk that looks and tastes like egg yolk. Non vegans are probably imagining the product is a cocktail of artificial flavours, colours and thickeners, but the remarkable thing is...it isn't. The Vegg is a really simple mix of yeshi (nutritional yeast), sodium alginate (a seaweed extract) and black salt (a sulfur-rich salt). This simple powder makes a versatile egg substitute for vegans.

This Month: Leicester Vegan Fair, Sat Aug 11th

August is here already and if you're in the UK's East Midlands (or fancy a trip) you can look forward to Leicester Vegan Fair 2012 this month. The event takes place on Saturday August 11th at Avenue Primary School, just behind the University, running from 10:30am until 3:30pm.

Full details are on the fair's website leicesterveganfair.com with more on their facebook page

You can also follow them on twitter: @leicestervegans

If you want us to publicise your vegan event, follow us on twitter @veganoo and let us know

Review: Blue Diamond 'Almond Breeze' Milk

There's been a sudden influx of almond milk brands arriving in the UK. The latest is Almond Breeze from California almond growers Blue Diamond. What's interesting is that the new arrivals, including Alpro have settled on just 2% almond to water ratio. Established brand EcoMil uses a 7% ratio in their milk which is more in line with soya milk and rice milk. Does Almond Breeze suffer from it's low almond content?

The Pesto Testo: Vegan Pesto Taste Test

The expanding vegan grocery market in the UK means we easily laid our hands on four brands of vegan pesto for our taste test. A decade ago you had to make your own; now we can compare who makes the best stuff for us to buy. These are four very different takes on pesto...as we'll see in our vegan pesto taste test.

Review: Chocolate Soya Desserts from Delamere

We've covered Delamere Dairy's soya shakes and their soya milk and now it's the turn of their chocolate desserts. The four packs of dessert pots can be found in the chiller section and therefore have better visibility than UHT desserts such as Alpro. Available at selected ASDA stores only, these desserts are quite hard to track down, so you'll want to know...are they worth seeking out?

Review: Food Heaven Lemon Cheesecake

Vegan lovers of cheesecake now have several sources of instant satisfaction. Food Heaven's non-dairy cheesecakes are co-branded with vegan ice cream favourite Swedish Glace. The frozen cheesecakes are stocked at Tesco as part of their welcome expansion of non-dairy foods. The packaging and branding are certainly better than the similar Mamma Cucina cheesecakes, but is the product good enough to replace your favourite cheesecake recipe?

Vegan Olympic Breakfast for London 2012

In honour of the start of the Olympics today, we thought we'd put together a vegan version of the famous British 'Olympic Breakfast'. Redwood Rashers, Fry's Sausages and The Vegg vegan egg yolk, together with hash browns, beans, mushrooms and tomatoes...and a good slick of Reggae Reggae sauce. 

The Olympic Breakfast gets its name because it takes an Olympian effort to finish it...rather than being the sort of thing Jess Ennis starts the day with. We threw in 3 sausages, 3 rashers, 4 hash browns and a large dipping bowl of hot vegan egg yolk...fantastic stuff. 

Ours is slightly healthier than the typical version...still a calorie blow-out...but fine once every 4 years...

Review: CoYo Coconut Milk Yoghurt

Non-Dairy doesn't always mean soya. Co Yo cultured coconut milk yoghurt has arrived in the UK. The probiotic yoghurt is available in natural (plain), mixed berry and pineapple. The yoghurt is sugar free and gluten free and proudly carries a vegan label. Originally developed in Australia the yoghurt launched in the UK earlier this year. We spotted a pot of the mixed berry flavour in our local wholefood shop and grabbed it for review.

Taste Test: Vegan Ice Cream Cones

It's hot and sunny, but your vegan ice cream needs a vegan cone. We've gathered together three brands of vegan wafer and waffle cones available in the UK, to see which is best. Two are gluten free, the other is sugar free...does that mean they're all taste free? We put a scoop of plain vanilla Swedish Glace in each...and ate them, so you don't have too (it's a tough job...)

Review: Fabulous FreeFrom Factory Choc Raisins

Raisins shouldn't need a review, but these do. 'Chocovered' raisins from the Fabulous FreeFrom Factory are raisins covered in faux milk chocolate...and there aren't many of those on the market. You can find carob coated and dark chocolate raisins in most wholefood shops, but strangely they are hardly ever vegan. These are, and they're great too.

Vegan Cafe in rural Norfolk: Hillside Sanctuary

There are lots of animal sanctuaries around the UK but how many have a vegan cafe? Hillside Sanctuary just outside the seaside town of Sheringham is home to hundreds of rescued animals...and to the best scones in Norfolk! The cafe is completely vegan and they don't hide this from visitors, with 'animal friendly' proudly displayed on the menu. 

With a visitor base that for the most part aren't vegan, this may be one of the biggest exercises in feeding vegan food to non-vegans we know of...

Review: Sainsbury's 'Rice Milk' Choc Bar

Sainsbury's Free From range may not yet be on a par with Tesco's range, but they have one or two things of note. This faux milk chocolate bar is one of those offerings. We're pretty sure this is made by Celtic who produce a wide range of dairy-free chocolates under their own name, including those fab caramels...the distinctive ribbed chunks are the same as those of Celtic's own bars...

Review: Mr Stanley's Fondant Creams

There was a time when pretty much the only vegan chocs you could buy were dark chocolate fondant creams. Mercifully those days are behind us, but it may be time to re-appraise the humble fondant cream, especially in light of these great tasting offerings from The Gourmet Candy Company. The creams are available in Rose and Violet, but avoid the non-vegetarian Lime flavour.

Review: Dame Blanche Chocolate Cream Biscuits

We had high hopes for these cookies we spotted on Veganstore. They are large chocolate sandwich biscuits in the style of German doppelkeks, but they also look a bit like Wagon Wheels (Moon Pies for US readers). They aren't at all like Wagon Wheels in reality as they have a chocolate fondant rather than a marshmallow centre. Are these sandwich biscuits worth adding to your next Veganstore order though?

Review: Happy Kitchen Chocolate Brownies

Gluten Free, Egg Free, Dairy Free and Sugar Free is always going to be a tough call for a brownie recipe, but the folks at Happy Kitchen in London Fields have risen to the challenge. The resulting vegan brownies are available in 4 flavours - original chocolate, raspberry, pecan and chocolate orange. We opted for the original chocolate brownie to see if this 'decadent wholefood' was more decadent or just more wholefood...

Review: 'Free From' Chocolate Desserts from Tesco

Another great new vegan product in Tesco's expanded Free From range is their four pack of chocolate desserts. The dairy-free and gluten-free desserts come in yoghurt-sized pots and can be found in the chiller cabinet. We're pretty sure these desserts are identical to those from a well known brand...

Review: Manner Viennese Wafers

Vegan wafer biscuits are still few and far between so it's handy to know a secret source... Manner is an Austrian brand of wafers that's popular on the continent and can be found in the UK...if you know where to look. They can often be found in continental-style shops such as italian, greek or turkish supermarkets. Be careful to avoid the chocolate ones which contain milk, but you're safe with the lemon or the original hazelnut 'Neapolitaner' wafers.

Profile: ShakeAway Milkshake Bars

Billed as the 'World's Largest Milkshake Bar Company', ShakeAway has branches across the UK and a handful in Australia and other countries. What makes this milkshake chain different though, is not their size but their extensive vegan menu.

Plantfoods. How to make quinoa qurd

A vegan soft cheese made from cultured quinoa milk. The step-by-step guide to making quinoa qurd is now available at our sister site plantfoods.org

Shower Gel for Vegan Blokes

Superdrug have vegan-certified shower gel on offer for 99p at the moment. Original Source for Men is the masculine version of the popular vegan shower gel line. We picked up three varieties of the gel at half the normal price. The men's version is pitched as a hair-and-body wash too.