New Kids On The Block - Jelly Babies Tropical ! (review)

This summer, one of the nation's favourite sweets got a "hot" new makeover, with Jelly Babies Tropical hitting the shelves, giving fans a taste of the tropics whatever the weather. This is huge news in the confectionery world, because it is the first time ever that new Jelly Babies flavours have been introduced.

We love Jelly Babies here at The Madhouse, as much for the flavours and the soft squishy texture as the pure, childish delight of biting off an unsuspecting Jelly Baby's head with an evil laugh ! The original line-up features five flavours - blackcurrant, strawberry (or is it raspberry? I'm pretty sure there used to be two, both light pink and dark pink), lemon, lime and orange - and they contain apple, lime, orange, strawberry, blackcurrant, lemon and raspberry juice, as well as sugar, glucose syrup, water, gelatine, flavourings and colourings.

The new recruits, on the bottom row in the picture, offer three new tropical flavours : mango (orange), banana (yellow) and pineapple (green). They contain exactly the same ingredients as the originals, minus the strawberry, blackcurrant and raspberry juice.

All three of the new flavours were a unanimous hit at The Madhouse, but we did think it was a shame that they look identical to the original flavours. If they're happy to have the unlikely choice of green to represent pineapple, why not go for totally different colours like blue, white or purple to differentiate them, then they could do mixed bags including both the original and new tropical flavours ?

If you're looking for a fun activity for the kids during half-term, how about making some little cars for your Jelly Babies to drive around on, with fun sized chocolate bars and Smarties as wheels and steering wheels? Great fun and a tasty treat once you've finished playing with them !

Jelly Babies Tropical and Original are available in 190g bags, for a RRP of £1.32 at most major supermarkets.

Disclosure : We received the product in order to write an honest review.

Big Taste in a Small Bar (Dairy Milk Toffee Whole Nut review)

Cadbury Dairy Milk's decision to launch Big Taste sharing bars, made with thick chocolate chunks full of scrumptious texture and flavour, was a resounding success, so they have added a new product to the range :  Cadbury Dairy Milk Big Taste Toffee Whole Nut single bars. They sent us some to give them a taste-test : it's a tough life being a blogger sometimes !

The bars target those looking for chunky bites and intense chocolatey flavours on-the-go and they certainly deliver on both counts. The first thing that comes through when you take a bite is the smooth, velvety milk chocolate, closely followed by the creamy toffee flavoured filling.

The taste sensation is not over yet though ! Next you get an explosion of gooey caramel, followed by the satisfying crunch of a whole hazelnut. It's the perfect combination of flavours and textures.

 Each 43g bar is made up of 6 chunks and to be honest, three of them was plenty because I found them totally delicious but a bit sickly after a couple of squares. That's great news for the calorie count though ! Each bar provides 241 calories, 16g of fat, of which 7.6g saturates, and 21g of carbs, of which 21g sugars.

star rating : 4/5

RRP : 61p for 43g

Disclosure : We received the product in order to write an honest review.

Elizabeth Shaw Christmas Chocolates review

Elizabeth Shaw have embraced the festive season and released a range of winter and Christmas-themed chocolates and we were delighted to receive some to review. As well as the Christmas Creations Gift Box and Winter Warmers Truffle Collection that they sent us through to sample, they have also created the delicious-sounding Milk Chocolate Orange Spice Crisps.

The Christmas Creations Gift Box looks very elegant when you open it up and discover four rows of round and square chocolates in gold, silver, dark brown and burgundy coloured wrappers. 

You get to choose between four seasonal favourites : Gingerbread Crisps (described as delicious gingerbread flavour dark chocolate with crisp honeycomb pieces), Smooth Orange Cremes (rich dark chocolate with a fragrant orange infused fondant centre), Milk Amaretto Neapolitan (smooth and silky Amaretto flavour milk chocolate squares) and Dark Chocolate Neapolitan (deliciously creamy caramel flavour dark chocolate squares). 

The ribbon detail on the box marks this out as a great gift idea and the slightly bitter flavours of dark chocolate and amaretto make these stand out as a chocolatey treat for the grown-ups to enjoy, rather then sharing with the kids ... who will all have more than enough chocolate in the selection boxes in their stockings anyway !

Another chocolate treat purely for adult enjoyment is the Winter Warmer Truffle Collection.

Each truffle is infused with alcohol - whisky, rum, cognac or amaretto - so you get a warming sensation in your throat as you bite into it and let it melt in your mouth. Many people think of a box of chocolates as a feminine gift, but this box really appealed to Madhouse Daddy too, and I'm sure he won't be alone. 

 Both boxes are perfect for passing around to nibble on as you watch all those classic yuletide TV moments such as Christmas Day EastEnders (how depressing will it be this year ?!), the Queen's Speech and the millionth rerun of The Snowman (but we'll still all sit down to watch it again anyway !). If you like to offer a box of chocolates to the neighbours, these would make a nice alternative to the more usual (and less exciting) options on the supermarket shelves.

star rating : 4/5

RRP : Christmas Creations Box £5.99 (available at Tesco), Winter Warmers Truffle Collection £6 (available at Asda)

for more information : www.elizabethshaw.co.uk

Disclosure : We received the products in order to write an honest review.

Happy 100th Birthday, Cadbury Milk Tray ! (review)

When this big shiny purple envelope dropped on the doormat, we all had the same reaction - "ooh that's just the colour of the Dairy Milk wrapper" !

Well, we weren't far wrong - inside was this lovely box of Cadbury Milk Tray chocolates.

The box has had a funky makeover to celebrate a special anniversary - unbelievably the brand has been going strong for a whole century - but I must admit, we were mostly interested in the contents !

As the name suggests, Milk Tray offers a selection of milk chocolate treats. The box contains all the usual suspects - Hazelnut Swirl, Strawberry Temptation, Perfect Praline, Caramel Softy, Fudge Duet, Orange Truffle and Surprise Parcel ...

Along with three brand new chocolates - Salted Caramel Charm (a sweet treat with chewy salted caramel layered in delicious Cadbury chocolate - beautifully chewy with the perfect salty edge to counterbalance the sweetness), Truffle Heart (a smooth milk chocolate truffle encased in a solid milk chocolate shell - nice but nothing really breathtakingly original) and Apple Crunch (playing on a quintessentially British treat, it combines the much loved flavours of apple pie with smooth Cadbury chocolate - we thought it had a nice cinnamon crunch but only the merest taste of apple).

Apple Crunch has actually been specially crafted to celebrate 100 years of Milk Tray moments, with a special 100 stamp on the chocolate itself, which sounds like the perfect excuse for buying a box to me !

The whole Madhouse Family have been tucking into the box and, while we all have our different favourites, there isn't a single one that didn't get a unanimous thumbs up. All because the lady Madhouse Family loves Milk Tray !

star rating : 4.5/5

RRP : £1 for 78g, £4.25 for 180g, £8.49 for 360g, £12.99 for 530g

 Disclosure : We received the product in order to write an honest review.

A Special Delivery from Swizzels Matlow (review)

You've probably noticed by now that I currently have a giveaway running with five lovely Retro Sweet Hampers up for grabs - if you haven't, head over there quick sharp because it's the last couple of days to enter ! Swizzels Matlow kindly sent us our very own hamper to drool over review and there was much excitement when it arrived. This is the exact same type of hamper that you can win, except ours was personalised.

Once we'd unpacked everything and done a bit of a stocktake, here was the contents :

3 x Rainbow Drops

2 x Fun Gums Fun Mix

2 x Fun Gums Juicy Lips

4 x Drumsticks lollipops

5 x fruity lollipops

9 x sherbert lollipops

3 x Parma Violets

6 x Fizzers

7 x Refreshers bars (3 flavours)

2 x Double Dips

I never liked the Rainbow Drops much as a kid but the Madhouse kids love them and I think they'd be great in cornflake cakes or as cupcake toppings. There are some of my childhood faves in there though, in particular the Refreshers, Drumstick lollies and Double Dips. It's a nice selection for a whole family to share (unless I get there first !).

Don't forget they currently have a site-wide 20% off code that runs until the end of July - just enter lovejuly20 at the checkout. The Retro Sweet Hamper retails at £9.99 non-personalised, £12.99 personalised (with a choice of messages such as Sorry, Marry Me, I Love You, Congrats, ...).

Head over to http://shop.lovehearts.com/ if you want to buy one and make sure your name is in the draw for my giveaway too !

Disclosure : We received the product in order to write an honest review.

Giveaway #494 : Win 1 of 5 Retro Sweet Hampers - closed - winners Louise Comb, Tracey Peach, Aaron Broad, Samantha Loughlin, Richard Moore

Hands up if you still hanker after the pocket money sweets from your childhood ! My favourites were chewy gooey Refreshers and those sherbert-filled rice paper flying saucers, although I was also rather partial to a Double Dip if I had enough coins left over in my neck purse from my dinner money on the way home from school ! (Aah those were the days - could you imagine sending your kids to school with cash in a neck purse now ?!)

Well, fear not, Swizzels Matlow have created a wonderful range of retro sweet hampers and jars that are sure to feature some of your childhood faves : Love Hearts, Refreshers, Drumsticks, Fun Gums, Parma Violets, Double Dip, Double Lollies, Fizzers, Fruity Pops, Rainbow Drops ... What would you eat first ?! They also give you the possibility of personalising them if you're looking for a special gift.

Even better news is that they currently have a site-wide 20% off code that runs until the end of July - just enter lovejuly20 at the checkout.

Head over to http://shop.lovehearts.com/ to stock up on all your favourite  old school classic sweets !

Those lovely people at Swizzels Matlow are going to spoil you rotten because they have FIVE fabulous retro sweet hampers to give away. Five lucky Madhouse Family Reviews readers will win a 500g retro sweet hamper. Just fill in your entries in the Rafflecopter widget below (and make sure you've answered the question) to be in with a chance of winning.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

UK only. Closing date : 31/7/15

T & C's : Entries close at midnight on the closing date. Winners will be selected with a random number generator and announced on facebook, twitter and in the giveaway post subject line. Please note, you will be contacted by email and/or twitter and if I haven't heard from you after a week, I'll have to pick another winner. Prizes will be sent out by the companies or their PR directly to winners. Madhouse Family Reviews cannot be held responsible for any prizes that go astray !

Other giveaways you may be interested in :

Giveaway #491 : Win a triceratops ipad case - closing date 30/7

Giveaway #492 : Win four luxury herbal teas from Yogi - closing date 31/7

Giveaway #493 : Win 2 x The Delivery Man on DVD - closing date 18/8

Madhouse diaries : The Disgusting Jelly Bean Challenge

A couple of weeks ago, I went off to England on a day trip with some of my pupils, so I asked the Madhouse kids if they wanted me to bring anything back in particular. We were visiting Dover Castle but also had some free time in Canterbury scheduled in for shopping, and I know they have loads of souvenir shops. Both Juliette and Sophie asked me to look out for disgusting jelly beans - I had no idea what they were on about but thought no more of it. When we were in Canterbury, all of the kids were going mad buying them - apparently it's a huge Youtube sensation and you can't get them in France - so I popped into the sweet shop where everyone had been buying them and shelled out way too much cash buying two packs (£3.99 and £2.99, what a rip-off !)

The Harry Potter ones (Bertie Bott's Beans) warn you in advance what you are letting yourself in for. Alongside the regular flavours like banana, candyfloss and green apple, you get disgusting things like earwax, dirt, sausage, soap and earthworm.

The Jelly Belly Bean Boozled ones are even more warped though. Each colour represents two flavours and they both look identical - biting into a green one might release juicy pear or booger (bogies) flavour, black could be licorice or skunk spray (both equally vile in my opinion !) and brown could be chocolate pudding or canned dog food. Ewww !

They may look innocent and tasty but one of the kids on the school trip was physically sick after eating a handful of these. Admittedly, he thought it was great, went on to show everyone off the coach and took me seriously when I suggested he took himself in a selfie with his pile of sick - goodness knows what his parents thought when he showed them the photos of his day out !

I did warn the Madhouse kids but they were still up for the challenge so we made little piles of each colour and took some paper cups for spitting out the foul ones (and hopefully not being sick in !). I filmed our exploits so you can have a giggle !

So what do you think? Would you be brave enough to eat them ?!

Sweetie hearts for your Valentine Sweetheart ! (review)

Do you remember when penny sweets really did cost a penny and with the 5p change left over from your school dinner money, hanging round your neck in a neck purse (I bet they'd be banned on health and safety grounds now !), you could literally buy a bag full of sweets to chomp on on the way home? Well, I don't think we'll ever see those prices again unfortunately, but I was still very pleased to learn about Retro Sweet, formerly known as MySweetieJar.com, and their wide range of nostalgic sweets.

They kindly sent us through this beautiful Love Lolly May Sweet Box (RRP £14.99) for us to try out. Inside the box, you get three different bags of sweets and they looked so lovely, I almost didn't want to mess up the packaging !

The little packets of Love Hearts were immediately pounced on - and not just by the kids ! I used to love these in my youth and reading the silly messages on them still makes me smile. They're perfect for Valentine's day too.

In the middle bag are beautiful foil-wrapped chocolate hearts which looked very posh and tasted lovely too - you can't go far wrong with a velvety, smooth chocolate heart !

In the final bag were Jelly Bean Love Hearts which ended up being my favourites. I love the slight chewiness and the instant burst of sweet fruitiness when you bite into them and chew - hmmm !

If you're looking at the heart-shapes and thinking that they'd make a perfect Valentine's Day or Mother's Day gift, there's another cool feature - you get a personalised A6 Gift Card with the message of your choice for that personal touch.

That's just one of the Valentine's gift ideas from Retro Sweet though -  they feature an extensive Valentine’s Day range of gifts, from chocolate heart trays bearing your sweetie’s name to hampers and even sweet bouquets.

Disclosure : We received the product in order to write an honest review.

Halloween sweeties from ASDA (review)

It was certainly a case of treats rather than tricks when ASDA sent us through some of their Halloween confectionery to try out.

This cute pumpkin-designed box contained three packs of sweets, which was absolutely ideal for the trio of Madhouse Mini-Testers. The jelly sweets disappeared faster than you could say trick or treat !

The biggest attraction was the lollipops though. They may look just like any regular fruity lollipops ...

... but these are Pumpkin Pops so when you've finished sucking, licking and crunching them, you snap the stick and it turns into a glow stick. How cool is that?! Perfect for making sure you're visible when trick or treating in the dark or twilight too.

They certainly get the Madhouse seal of approval !

Disclosure : We received the products in order to write an honest review.

Other blogposts you may be interested in :

Half-term fun with ALDI Halloween Specialbuys

Kiddie Kitchen Fun : Cheerios Frankenstein's Monsters

ASDA Witches Hat Cake Pop Kit review

Tung Toos - temporary tattoos for your tongue ! (review)

Get ready for the latest craze to arrive from America ! The Madhouse kids squealed in delight when this rather exciting selection of Tung Toos arrived in the post. As the name suggests, they are temporary tattoos for your tongue. They taste like sweets and they come in loads of fun, colourful designs.

Pierre was instantly drawn to the Phineas & Ferb ones. You get six tung toos in a pack, along with a collectible card, making them the ultimate playground craze (or on-the-way-home-from-school craze, if you're not allowed sweets at school).

It's a simple process of putting the tung too face down on your tongue for a couple of seconds, then lifting up the paper. Surprisingly, they taste lovely.

In terms of precision, they're not that great. It may be down to us being useless and not managing to not smudge them too ! While you will definitely end up with a brightly coloured tongue, most of the time you can't actually see what the design is supposed to be, but this didn't stop the Madhouse kids loving them ! 

In fact, Pierre came up to me so many times with his newly tung-tooed tongue hanging out for me to take a photo that, as you can see if you look closely, he started dribbling !

I'm not sure if we need more practice or if the kids' tongues are a bit too small for the bigger designs but we certainly had a lot of fun trying to perfect our tung-tooing..

We moved on to one of the other packs which has some smaller designs.

This one says COOL but I'll be honest, I'd never have known that if I hadn't seen the Tung Too beforehand. Juliette still thought it was great though and, as the pattern will only stay on your tongue for about 20 minutes, you can start all over again.

You can get some really unflattering photos that will make everyone laugh !

The more we tried, the better we got - you can actually make out the letters of the word COOL here if you look carefully.

And this one is quite recognisable from the Phineas & Ferb pack.

Sophie managed to get a perfect heart (maybe because it was a smaller design or because she has a bigger tongue !).

When I said this to Pierre, he managed to make his tongue extend by another 5cm, which made us all laugh again !

The verdict was, they're great fun and they taste really nice. Kids and big kids of all ages love them and it's a great ice breaker at a party (whether for kids or grown-ups !). You'll be the coolest neighbour on the street if you stock up on these for Halloween !

star rating : 4/5

available in independent retailers and Toys R Us

for more information : http://www.tungtoos.com/

Disclosure : I received the product in order to write an honest review.

Other blogposts you may be interested in :

Picture book review : Yuck! Said The Yak - Alex English & Emma Levey

Time to stop the lousy taboo ! Headlice advice

Our Freddo Frog Loom Bands Crafting Session