McVitie’s Gold Billions Wafer (WH Smiths) By @SpectreUK

I fancy a treat tonight. My favourite comfort food is some sort of white chocolate bar with a white hot chocolate. This McVitie's Gold Billions Wafer is a "cream filled wafer bar with milk chocolate and white chocolate and caramel flavoured coating". Now that does sound like a proper treat.

White hot chocolate at the ready, as you can see from the photograph, McVitie's Gold Billions Wafer had a white caramel chocolate topping, with a milk chocolate bottom. The wafer on the inside had a creamy centre.

This was a luxuriously complex chocolate wafer bar. Crunchy to start with to get through the fairly thick chocolate coating, and the inner wafers, the creaminess made this a melt in the mouth sweet chocolate creamy caramel treat. It went perfectly with my white hot chocolate and the last of my Cadbury's White Chocolate Creme Eggs. Yum.

On opening the wrapper

Information on the wrapper; The 39g bar had 547 calories per 100g, with 32g of fat, 56.6g of sugar, and 0.38g of salt. Please see photograph for the ingredients.

Gu Cheesecake Black Forest (Sainsburys) By @Cinabar

My favourite cake is Black Forest Gateau, I think because of the nostalgia. The foods you like are based on nostalgia and memory, which is why many people’s favourite chocolate is the one they remember from childhood. I remember this cake from childhood, and I love the combination of chocolate, cherries, and cream. I know it is a bit retro, but I'm a big fan of everything 1980s-themed. When I saw there was a new Gu Cheesecake Black Forest, I knew it was something I had to pick up. 

 

Inside the box are the usual foil-topped glass ramekins. I pulled back the lid and found that the dessert looked quite dark. I scooped some onto a spoon and could see the layers more clearly. I gave it a try, and it was a proper blast of the comforting Black Forest Gateau flavours. The cherries were sweet and strong; there was plenty of chocolate; and the cheesecake element added the creamy balance that recreated the flavour. The texture is quite limited in that all the layers are soft, the base if a little former but there is no crunch and no juicy cherries, which is a shame but I still liked the taste so very much. The combination is a classic, and the different elements are well balanced. This Gu Cheesecake Black Forest is an absolute delight.

What is your favourite cake from childhood? 

Taste The Difference Banoffee Pie Inspired Yoghurts (Sainsburys) By @Cinabar

I wanted a bit of a treat this lunchtime. I usually have a low-fat yoghurt, but today I picked up a fun-sounding Banoffee Pie Inspired Yoghurt, from the Taste The Difference range at Sainsburys. There are two in the pack, and they are a little more expensive than my usual six packs of fruit flavours, but they are a bit of a treat.

Inside the pack is quite a plain-looking dark cream yoghurt, with biscuit bits mixed in. I gave it a try, and it may not look exciting, but the flavour really was. It was a rich, sweet toffee-flavoured yoghurt with a creamy, sweet banana taste running through it, a complete delight. There is also a lovely creaminess too, and the yoghurt is thick and luxurious. The biscuit bits are soft as they have been in the yoghurt, but they do still add a little texture and a nice richness to the flavour. My conclusion is that yoghurts usually come in six packs, and there are seven days in the week, so every other week I might add a nice pack of treat yoghurts in twin pots to enjoy. These Taste The Difference Banoffee Pie Inspired Yoghurts are so nice, I can't wait to have them again and see what other interesting flavours are available. 

Italiamo - Farfalle al limone - pasta with lemon (Lidl) [@NLi10]

 Occasionally we pick up the expensive Italian pasta from farm shops, and italian delis - and sometimes we pick them up from Lidl!

They have good contacts in Europe so we get good quality random euro products for budget prices - and that's what we have here!

And while it's not quite the peak quality stuff, it's certainly better than your normal pasta - and the lemon flavour is more of a gentle hint than I'd hoped.  This coupled with the other strong Italian flavours of olives and pesto though creates a lovely little lunch and is well worth hoping they still have some left of next time round.

Peroni Gran Riserva Doppio Malto (Asda) By @SpectreUK

This Peroni Gran Riserva Doppio Malto sounds and looks really impressive in it's smart labelled bottle. I'm suspecting Birra Peroni weren't expecting a bottle of this beer to be washing down ham, fried egg, and chips, but that's what I have for dinner tonight. At 6.6% in volume, from the Doppio Malto title, I'm also suspecting that this beer is plentiful with malted barley.

On serving up my dinner and pouring the bottle into my waiting beer mug, there was indeed a good malted barley aroma to this bubbly beer. Strong and sweet in malted barley with an alcoholic kick to boot, herbal hops provided lively bitterness towards the aftertaste. And what a taste. Gosh, this Peroni Gran Riserva Doppio Malto lived up to the smart labelled bottle it was presented in. Maybe I'll have it with a tomato pasta dish with some cheesy garlic bread on the side next time. Those strong sweet malts and hops will complement those flavours very nicely indeed.