MEGA POST! Sweetly Subscription Box AND discount! (Online)

Lord knows how many American treats I've sampled since starting this blog. I fell in love with the country and their never ending supply of super sweet goodies a number of years ago, and my obsession hasn't even begun to wane yet. Cue my absolute glee when I received an email from Sweetly, inviting me to try their brand new American themed subscription box. Yes please!

So who are Sweetly and what do they offer exactly? 

"Hi, we're Sweetly and our mission is to deliver enjoyment and satisfaction through the medium of candy (sweets, if you prefer). We started Sweetly as we had grown tired of the the same old chocolate bars and sweets and wanted to give our taste buds something new to munch on. We visited the great country of America while visiting some old friends and that is where we fell in love with American candy. When we arrived back in the UK we craved for more American sweets but not only for ourselves, we wanted to share the sweet American taste with friends, family, co-workers and more importantly, you!
And that's how Sweetly was born."

Almost a month ago my Sweetly Box arrived, and if you follow me on Instagram you may have seen my excitement when I opened the parcel and uncovered all the goodies. I don't know about you but I'm often disappointed when I place an order online, for it to be delivered and only be half full. The day the Sweetly came felt like Christmas in comparison, for the box was jam packed full of all sorts of goodies. I expected a couple of candy bars, and some sweets but not the can of pop, pick and mix like sweeties and the little sachet of Kool Aid!

Even better yet, I hadn't tried many of the goods before, which was altogether astonishing given how much I've spent on Imported goods this year. In fact I've been trying to get hold of a whatchamacallit for months now, but every time I place an American Fizz order it's ourt of stock. The MoonPie also filled me with excitement, again it's something I've been eyeing up for a while, but my local shop sells stock that's over a year out of date (apparently it's allowed because it's 'Best Before').

Some of the treats I have tried already,  so if you want you can read my reviews of Twinkies, Butterfingers and Nerds.

5th Avenue

I had my doubts about the 5th avenue bar, and considered it to be a chocolate covered version of Nestle's Butterfinger. Given my ongoing love affair with Hershey's, I almost didn't want to try the 5th avenue for fear of ending our relationship.

Opening the bar, and snapping it in two confirmed my worst fears. Yes, this was all too reminiscent of the horribly sickly Butterfinger. I bit the end, but alas, that's all I could manage. The chocolate was pretty decent for American stuff though.

2/10

Whatchamacallit
I really enjoyed this caramel, rice crisp, and peanut filled bar and would describe it as a peanut butter toffee crisp. The combination of textures and flavours worked well together, and I'd be more than happy to buy them in future.

8/10

U-NO 

U-NOs are made by Annabelle's, who alsoproduce the Rocky Road S'mores bar. The U-NO bar is described as 'a smooth rich milk chocolate bar with a truffle-like center covered in milk chocolate and ground almonds.' It's a whopper of a bar though, but I'm afraid the taste wasn't fantastic -it made me think of the cheap Christmas truffles you might find in poundland at Christmas time. That said, it was very chocolatey, and fulfilled my chocolate cravings.

6/10

Mallo-Cups
Boyer say that here are 'seldom better combinations in candy than gooey marshmallow and chocolate'. I'm not sure I agree with that -peanut butter and, well anything?- but I do like chocolate, and marshmallow so was looking forward to tucking in. The centres were gooey, more like Marshmallow Fluff, and the chocolate was waxy -but I was hit by a shock! The chocolate contained coconut, which gave the Mallo-Cups a much more unusual edge which was rather pleasant. Coconut and chocolate isn't my favourite, so I probably wouldn't buy them again, but if you're a fan then give the Boyer cups a go sometime!

6/10

Gatorade
The iconic American drink that I have never tried. I rarely buy lemon or lime flavoured drinks but was more than happy to find out what all the fuss was about. I was disturbed by the colour however -it looked like it would make me glow in the dark! The other surprise was that it wasn't carbonated (I always assumed that 'ade' =fizzy, cherryade for example). Unfortunately it really wasn't my cup of tea but now I can tick it off my 'must try one day' list at least!

4/10

Lemonheads
Ahh these little box of bright yellow nuggets packed a punch. They were like zingy, hard coated, chewy centred jelly beans and were one of my favourites in the Sweetly box!

8/10

Now and Later Extreme Sour Watermelon Soft Chews
I'm really not good with really sour sweets -Tangfastics are abour my limit- so I was a bit cautious when trying these. I needn't have been though, sour fanatics might be disappointed, but they delivered a tartness that was enjoyable! The texture was like chewits too which meant that my fillings stayed in place too, hurrah!

7/10

Pink Lemonade Kool-Aid
I know I said I don't often by lemon or lime flavoured drinks, but pink lemonade is my exception to that rule -don't ask me why, not much makes sense in my mind anyway! The packet advised to add either sugar or sweetener and to dissolve in water, but I was feeling rebellious and poured mine into Cream Soda. It was genius though! I felt both girlie, smart and Kool with my pint of 'homemade' ;) pink lemonade.

8/10

Starburst GummiBursts
Rob and I fought over the 10 or so sweets in this little pack. Each sweet was packed full of flavour (especially the red ones!) and I really wish that they would be released in the U.K

9/10

MoonPie Chocolate Double-Decker
I've heard the MoonPie likened to Wagon Wheels on a number of occasions, but this wasn't just any MoonPie, it was the double-decker version! The MoonPie comprised of layers of marshmallow, graham cracker and chocolate, which sounded rather delicious to me. Now as far as I was aware, Graham Crackers are the U.S equivalent of our digestive, i.e a staple, crunchy biscuit type affair. Well the 'cracker' in the Moon Pie was more cakey than that -but honestly? It made it even scrummier. 

After eating one half, I popped the rest in the microwave for 15-20 seconds. This happened to be another lightbulb moment -all the marshmallow went stringy, whilst the chocolate had started to melt. I made an awful mess eating it, but it brought out the child in me and made me grin (isn't that the Wagon Wheel thing?).

9/10

Summary
I'm super impressed with Sweetly. In fact its the best subscription box I've tried to date, and if I weren't constantly buying snacks to review on the blog I would most certainly sign up. Sweetly costs £13.99 per month and there's no delivery fees. Each box contains 12-14 full-size treats (including at least 5 premium items) which the company says is worth more than £30 in retail value (and I believe them), so it's fantastic value for money. You've got just 6 days if you want to get your hands on November's box, otherwise I think it would make a fab Christmas present for fellow sugar addicts! For 10% off your first order enter SEEKSNEWTREATS10! Click here to visit their website.

Sweetly = 10/10

Thanks very much Sweetly for sending me one of your first boxes!

NEW! Snickers Crisper (American Fizz)

How is it possible that new British food can take up to six months to reach our little city, yet I can have delivered a new American chocolate bar in far less time? The new Snickers crisper was launched in November 2015, and I bought it from American Fizz in February. 

Anyway, I digress, did you know that Snickers is the fastest selling singles bar in the U.S? Well according to Mars it is! 

"Crispy satisfaction is on the horizon with new SNICKERS® Crisper - a delicious combination of crisped rice and peanuts topped with a layer of caramel and coated in creamy SNICKERS® Brand milk chocolate."

This snickers is in the same format as their wonderful Peanut Butter squared bar*, with two individual chocolate covered cubes. Once sliced, the even layers of peanuts, rice, caramel and chocolate became apparent. 

The chocolate was noticeably worse quality than what we're used to in the UK, something I can easily forgive Reese's for, but not Mars. I think it's because the company also makes my favourite British chocolate (Galaxy) and so I know they're capable of something better than this!

Fortunately the other components were far more enjoyable: the oozy caramel above the peanuts and puffed rice- which were both as crispy as promised. The ratio of each element worked well together, but I can't help thinking that the bar could've benefitted from some extra saltiness to balance out the sweetness, perhaps in the caramel layer.

I'm glad I tried this bar, it's novel, but I probably wouldn't buy it again in all honesty. If I was hankering for another American crunchy peanut chocolate bar, I'd rather a Take 5.

6/10


*I was fortunate enough to be sent the yummy Snickers PB Squared by fellow blogger One Treat & you can read a fair review of the bar by Nibs 'N' Scribs here. 

Honey Monster Puffs Banana Cereal Bars

I can't say that I'm a regular consumer of Sugar Puffs... or rather Honey Monster Puffs as they're now known. I do buy them occasionally, and I quite liked the banana variety when it first came out, but then I got bored and haven't bought them since. I spotted this pack of 5 banana cereal bars at the 99p store and couldn't resist the sweet little minion faces (yes I'm that much of a sucker). 
  

Each bar is individually wrapped with a little minion on! 

Texturally, its rather like Rice Krispie Squares: it holds its shape but crumbles away once nibbled, revealing it in all its sticky glory. The banana flavouring is very strong, in a foam-sweet artificial kind of way- there's no pretending it's a healthy treat that's for sure! I'm a big fan of foam shrimps & bananas, and they're a regular in our sweetie jar, so I guiltily enjoyed the sickly sugar rush. 

I appreciate that these are aimed at children, but I really enjoyed them! Taste-wise they certainly beat Alpen Light's Banoffee bars*, and if you're somebody whose interested in calories they're pretty much identical. 

7/10

* The Alpen Light Jaffa Cake bars outshine the Honey Puff banana bars though! 

New Salted Caramel Squares

I'm a bit disgruntled at the release of these Rice Krispies Squares simply because it replaces the Rocky Road variety in our local ASDA. I particularly enjoyed the Rocky Road flavour because:

It was chocolate-y & It had a good combination of flavours and textures including white chocolate chunks, raisins and marshmallows.

I'm not sure if Kellogg's have stopped making the Rocky Road variety as ASDA was the only stockist of the entire range in my area.

I shouldn't complain too much, because as you may have gathered from my earlier posts, I love caramel... So I decided to see how it faired in comparison to the other Rice Krispies Squares.

I love that each Square is individually wrapped- it may not be good for the environment- but it's much better for transportation purposes (and ultimately stops me from becoming tangled in cling-film whilst attempting to wrap it and stow it in a lunchbox!)

The wrappers are a pretty gold colour, and I was surprised when I opened the packet to find that the colour of the Square itself was a similar colour. I'm not sure why I was fazed by this as caramel is  golden, but for some reason I was expecting it to be the same pale colour of the standard Squares.

The Square tasted sickly with a mere hint of the salt that it promised of. I thought the caramel flavour was nice and strong, but without any other flavours to break it up, it simply felt too saccharine. That may sound daft because the additions to the Rocky Road Squares are all sweet; but I think its the monotony of the salted caramel that led to it's demise. Perhaps I was just hankering for a chocolate element to top it off!

Thankfully I only paid the offer price of £1 for 4 but I won't be rushing out to buy them again as they do lots more flavours that are more appealing!

4/10

Kelloggs Rice Krispies Multi-grain Mini Biscuits

Kelloggs have recently released two new 'Multi-Grain Mini Biscuit' bags packs in Coco Pops and Rice Krispies flavours. Each large bag contains 5 handy size snack packs of mini biscuits, and I purchased them for £1 from ASDA.

As a chocoholic I initially opted for the chocolate Coco Pops biscuits.. But they weren't brilliant

(:Coco Pop Multi-Grain Biscuit Review ) 

However, having read reaching for refreshment's  Multi-Grain Biscuit Review , and seeing that she'd got on better with the rice krispie version, I decided to give them a whirl.

Again, each bag had about a dozen mini biscuits in, topped with oats. My expectations were low, but I was pleasantly surprised. I'm not sure I could distinguish the flavour as being particularly that of a Rice Krispie, but then puffed rice hasn't got that much of a taste. I'd describe them as vanilla flavoured biscuits, and the bonus is that they are pretty low in fat (2.2g per bag, 1g sat fat) and also contain fibre... However, be aware if you're watching your sugar intake (7.8g) but that explains the yummy taste ;).

I'd definitely buy these again

8/10