I must say, when I agreed to be a Bear Ambassador, I didn’t realise I would be so spoiled! Last month it was a personalised bag for some trick or treating, in previous months crafting, and more besides, but this month along with two boxes of Alpha Bites cereal, I received a bright yellow breakfast bowl – the kids loved it so much I bought a matching one… it’s made breakfast a much brighter affair! – and with it a personalised spoon, and a Heather Alstead placemat.
Aren’t they pretty?
Of course, the real review here is the Alpha Bites. Aside from the simple, but bright and colourful boxes themselves. The boxes contain the Bear Time Travel Adventure cards, which my daughter absolutely loves. They are informative and entertaining, and often good conversation starters.
The Alpha Bites come in ‘plain’ multigrain and cocoa flavours. They are very sweet, but not in a saccharin manner – in fact they have no added refined sugar, and no added salt. The Alpha Bites consist of barley, oats, corn, rice, wheat and coconut nectar, which is what makes it sweet.
The kids love Alpha Bites, surprisingly the Multigrain as much as the Cocoa. They love it with milk, and they also like it as a snack without milk, so that’s good to have on hand for when everyone wants a little something sweet.
We are part of the Alphabites programme, so have been sent these items free in exchange for an honest review
I do love ‘happy post’ – that’s what we call mail the postman has to ring the bell for! A few weeks ago we received this fab parcel from BEAR, containing their Halloween/Autumn themed bear claw snacks.
I loved the personalised bag that comes as a perk of working with Bear, and did immediately pop the little squashes into the oven, then demolished them with slatherings of butter. And I didn’t even share! 😉
For the kids, the box contained Strawberry and Butternut BEAR Claws and Apple, Pear and Pumpkin BEAR Claws.
Each box contains 5 lunch box sized bags – convenient, since I have two kids, so they can have a two bags each and there’s a spare for me!
As with all BEAR snacks, these flavouris are 100% fruit and veg and contain no ‘added nonsense’.
The flavours sound rather… unusual… and I wasn’t sure what to make of them, but after playing with my food for a while, I did try them.
When you open the Strawberry and Butternut package you’re immediately met by the sweet aroma of the strawberry. Pop one in your mouth, and the overwhelming flavour is of strawberry. I struggle to identify the pumpkin flavour in these at all, but from a child’s point of view, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Apparently there’s 230g butternut in a finished (dehydrated) 100g of BEAR Claws, so if a bag is roughly 20% of that – each bag contains roughly 45g of butternut (I’m guessing) – so it’s an ideal way to get those hidden veggies in!
The Apple, Pear and Pumpkin flavour on opening has a sweet apple aroma, and while it has distinct pear and apple flavours, you again can’t really taste the pumpkin despite the presence of over 240g of pumpkin to each 100g of finished product.
While the BEAR claws are great to play with, they are also delicious to eat, and my kids love them. In fact, it’s getting them to save some for later that’s the problem!
Bear Claws are available online from Amazon and Ocado though you can pick them up in shops like Waitrose too.
We were sent this box of goodies free to review as part of the BEAR ambassador programme. Opinions and views are my own (or those of my children.) Links in the post may be affiliate links – you will not be charged for using them.
I don’t normally fall over myself to do anything special for Halloween, but when I saw these Mis-Fortune cookies, I pretty much had to have them.
They would make the most perfect after dinner treat if you’re doing anything on Halloween – or if you’re a closet Goth and want to bring your inner darkness to the table.
The box contains – obviously – an unlucky 13 misfortune cookies. Each is individually wrapped in a frightful wrapper decorated by frightened cats, ghouls and a teddy bear that’s seen better days, all in a style reminiscent of Tim Burton.
Inside the wrapper is a pitch black misfortune cookie, shaped like a traditional fortune cookie. Crack it open with a perfect snap, and inside you’ll find a black paper with your mis-fortune written on it.
My first misfortune cookie was so macabre, I had to laugh out loud: Your best days are already behind you. Well, I’d just spent the morning with two tired and grumpy children after an intensely busy week. How did the misfortune cookie know?!
Well, on that cheerful note, I risked a bite of the cookie, half expecting it to be made of dried out black pudding or something equally unpleasant sounding and tasting. Fortunately the producers take mercy on your taste buds and provide a delicious tasting fortune cookie – but it is the only thing they take mercy on.
With messages like “Happy? It won’t last!” and “At least I believe in you. Me. A piece of paper” your guests will be served a hard dose of reality, but I bet they’ll laugh about it. This will be like Christmas, where everyone’s taking turns sharing theirs for everyone to groan and laugh over.
Whether as an after dinner amusement, or if you’re feeling flush and want to give them out to trick or treaters, these will go down a storm, I’m pretty confident!
These Misfortune Cookies are made from wheat flour, sugar, glucose syrup and contain Soya Lecithins. They are coloured by carbon, rapeseed oil and also contain flavouring, salt and sodium bicarbonate.
You can find them at a number of retailers online:
I’m not a big consumer of commercial biscuits. The way I figure it, if I’m going to stock up on empty calories I’ll just go straight for the chocolates – which I do often enough. I can, however, walk down the biscuit isle in my supermarket and simply not be tempted. Well, I could. Once. I fear those days may be over.
Let me introduce you to my new friend(s): Bahlsen Choco Leibniz Dark, and his cousins Milk, White, Choco Orange, and Caramel.
New Kids In Town: Choco Leibniz Biscuits
We were sent a parcel full of biscuits to review (that’s just great post to receive, by the way!) and told to have ourselves a little picnic. I’m going to interrupt myself here to tell you one of the major drawbacks to living on a holiday – island: whenever you go to the beach, your kids want ice cream and treats, because everyone else is on holiday, and having ice cream and treats. I’m the mean mum who says no! we aren’t on holiday!
When I emptied out these biscuits into a fetching plastic container, and took them along to the beach for our picnic, my kids thought Christmas had come. Thanks Bahlsen!
More Choco Leibniz please!
So, to the biscuits and why Choco Leibniz will make me do a double take in the supermarket: they may look like a biscuit, but they’re really just chocolate with a bit of crunch. And they are so delicious. I’m almost ashamed to say how many days it took us to finish all five boxes. Not many.
Milk: delicious creamy milk chocolate – proper quality, melts in the mouth.
Dark: these were scrumptious. Rich dark chocolate, bitter but balanced with the biscuit, a definite favourite. I had to fight my daughter for the last one.
White: now, these took me by surprise. I don’t like white chocolate, but these have a dark biscuit base that make for an amazing taste sensation. I’d definitely buy them again!
Orange: These, again, took me by surprise, because I’m not a huge chocolate orange fan. But after one bite, I pulled the half biscuit back to have a look inside. I thought it had a liquid or jelly layer, like jaffa cakes. But they don’t. They’re just really fresh tasting. Lush.
Caramel: I didn’t get to have any of these. My family demolished them before I got to them. I think that means they loved them too!
As you can see in that last picture of our picnic on the beach: my girl doing an Oliver Twist impression, “More please, Sir”. Doesn’t she look sad with her plate (an upturned frisbee!) all empty.
Yeah. That’s how we all feel, now the cupboard is bare.
(Oh, and there’s also a whole page dedicated to recipes using the Choco Leibniz biscuits. Sadly we ate them all before I realised that.)
*These were a free gift in exchange for an honest review. You can purchase Choco Leibniz biscuits from most major retailers. Right there. In the biscuit isle. Never to be walked by again.
