Having chatted with a lot of bloggers and online friends who have children who are intolerant to different things or who have to (or who have chosen to) follow a free-from diet themselves, I know how hard that can be on a day-to-day basis. It appears that gluten, milk and nuts, to name just a few common triggers, can be present in a whole host of food items that you would never have even thought about. Trying to find tasty, appealing, child-friendly "free from" treats for Easter must be even more complicated so I was really pleased to learn about Choices, a range of "free from" Easter eggs that are available from Holland & Barrett - especially when they offered to send us some through to test !
We received a small 65g Choices White Chocolate Easter Egg with White Choc Buttons and a larger 125g Choices "milk" chocolate Easter Egg with 6 Choices Discs. Both are labelled as "a delicious alternative to milk/white chocolate" and are dairy free, wheat free, gluten free, egg free and suitable for vegetarians and vegans.
The 65g egg contains 142 calories per 25g serving (so 369 calories for the whole egg, which is quite a lot for a smallish egg - it would be interesting to compare this to a normal, non-free from egg of similar size !). The dairy-free white chocolate is made from sugar, cocoa butter, rice syrup, inulin, coconut oil, rice flour, emulsifier and natural flavouring, which is a reassuringly short list with no E-numbers. The small size and cute packaging with bunnies on makes it perfect for kids.
The "milk" chocolate egg contains slightly fewer calories - 126 calories per 25g serving - so the whole egg contains 630 calories, but there's no way you'd eat the whole egg in one sitting (unless you're a real pig !). It contains all the same ingredients as above but with cocoa mass added - it's labelled as 38.5% minimum cocoa solids. It looks slightly more grown-up, although kids wouldn't turn their nose up at it either !
So, on to the all-important taste testing. Well, the dairy-free "milk" chocolate isn't bad - it's not as totally indulgent and creamy as Belgian chocolate or my favourite Galaxy, but it's as good as many Easter eggs and, for anyone with food intolerances, I'm sure they'd be over the moon to find an egg they can eat safely. The white chocolate egg got a huge thumbs up from all the tasters and we all said we'd be happy to eat it with or without any special dietary requirements.
There are also sugar-free Easter eggs available in the range, for anyone who needs chocolate with a low GI index.
star rating : 4/5
RRP : £3.49/£3.99
available in Holland & Barrett stores nationwide
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I'd be interested in some chocolate free eggs too...I'm alergic to cocoa but the only carob easter eggs I have seen ironically are the dog ones in the pet shop lol...if you see or hear of any I would love to know
ReplyDeleteHmm I'll let you know if I see any !
Deletethey have carob easter treats on the dand d web site
Deletesort of review our family would have loved. I must admit I have never seen, or heard, of dairy free white choc and we have been eating dairy free for over 30 yrs. Was always carob when mine were young but is quite an acquired taste
ReplyDeleteThanks for the review! I have just had bloods taken last Thursday because the doc suspects I might be suffering from coeliac disease! I'm hoping it could just be IBS but I must admit the symptoms have gone on for a while now and are worse after eating. I was lookingin Sainsbury's at the Gluten free products and cannot believe how expensive they are. I really hope it is just IBS but at least I know there is decent chocolate out there if I have to go gluten free! Fingers crossed!
ReplyDeleteOh no, fingers crossed it's nothing too bad - although there is a lot of support and advice now if it is coeliac disease. Hugs xx
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