Jacobs Mini Cheddars Stilton

I found a multi pack of Mini Chedars in Sainsbury's. The packet says Choose your Cheese. All very fine but this was the only flavour they had on the shelf. So here we are. I see on the website that Mini Cheddars now come in three new flavours: Stilton, Red Leicester and Smoked Applewood. Goodness me! What sort of a cheese is Smoked Applewood?

I must find out where to buy the other two flavours because all the reluctant taste testers who got to try really liked this new flavour. It's a good bit more cheesy than your ordinary Cheddar or Mini Cheddar which taste of slightly cheesy saltiness. We admit Cheddars are nice. And we've all been eating them for years. But really: could do better. And guess what? Jacobs have done better.

Yum. I liked these a lot as did Tall Elegant taste tester, Slightly Red Haired Bristolian, Still a Student, and Temporary Physicist taste testers. Yes, I think we can report that we really liked these biscuitty snacks. I wasn't sure I would like them as I really don't like blue cheeses. But this taste is great.

Baked to golden perfection says the packet. I'm impressed. Delicious.

Jacobs Oddities Salt & Vinegar.

I picked up a multi pack of Jacob's Oddities the other week. Called Oddities I suppose because these crisp little biscuits are all sorts of odd shapes, they are even odd in the packet department. Look at that; the packet opens down the side. Or maybe the packet opens at the top (or bottom) as usual, but is printed sideways. I can't decide which would be easier for the factory.

These little biscuits come in all sort of improbable shapes. Bird, owl, bone, camera, speech bubble with LOL on it, windmill, pineapple.... Somehow eating a salt & vinegar biscuit shaped like a pineapple does feel a bit odd. Hence the name I guess. And lip shapes, sky rockets, and flowers.

Anyway, the little biscuits (baked, the packet tells us) are quite sweet tasting with the salt & vinegar flavouring chucked on top. Which sounds odd but works quite well.

You only get 25g in each little multi pack packet which is less than an ounce. We ate our way through 3 packets with no trouble at all. The biscuits are so tiny you get a lot of them in 25g but of course they are very easy to eat.

And for those of you anxious about a very strong salt & vinegar flavour: this is a very gentle version.

I should say that somewhat to my surprise this is my 500th post. Who'd have thought the project I started by accident one rainy summer afternoon in Switzerland would last so long? Who would have thought there are so many crisps to try?

Jacobs Mini Cheddars Branston Pickle Flavour

This little 50g packet of Mini Cheddars was strategically positioned next to the sandwiches in Waitrose so I discovered it when I was pondering what to have for lunch.

It is a tiny packet and there weren't very many Mini Cheddars in it so I can only suppose they are heavier than they look. If it had contained crisps I think it would more likely weigh 20g.

Anyway, as usual the Mini Cheddars are tasty little cheesy biscuits with a lovely crunch. One of the taste testers questioned the legitimacy of my adding Cheddars to the list. It's not a crisp complained the Senior taste tester. No. Obviously not. But we've had Cheddars before... and popcorn too. That's definitely not a crisp. I'm not going to pay any attention to this complaint.

And on top of the tasty cheesiness a lovely tasty smidge or a certain something of Branston pickle flavour. Delicious.

Branston Pickle, for those not in the know, is a dark brown pickle made of tomatoes and vinegar and spices and stuff. You eat it with cheese or whatever you fancy. Mini Cheddars perhaps?

Jacobs Cracker Crisps Sea Salt & Balsamic Vinegar

I put a bowl of these Cracker Crisps in the kitchen at work and went out to buy my lunch. And I have to admit that I was quite unprepared for the horror that greeted me on my return.

Tech taste tester and History Graduate had snatched up handfuls of this crispy snack thinking it was a little cheesy biscuit. But what they got was salt and vinegar. So what their taste buds thought was Gordon Bennett! this is strong!

Actually, I think the Sea Salt & Balsamic Vinegar flavour is rather gentle and sweet. I would be happy to buy these again. And the reluctant taste testers tried again after their mistake and decided that perhaps this crispy snack was acceptably tasty after all. But I must point out that the Chef thought the taste was pretty strong.

Nice little biscuits. Very good texture and crunch. Slightly odd (unusual) shapes featuring more curvy lines than you might expect. There were quite a lot of broken bits at the bottom of the packet, but not too many.

Jacobs is a brand owned by United Biscuits.

TUC Cheese Sandwich

I absolutely adore these cheese sandwiches from TUC.

The TUC crackers are pretty good on their own; very good crunch, nice golden colour, 18 little holes on the glossy top side and chamfered corners. And a great sprinkling of salt. Very nice indeed.

But two crackers sandwiched together with a cheesy paste? Well, it's true genius.

Of course, the cheesy paste is 100% fake food. Cheesy something squished to a tasty smush. And paired with the salty crunch of the TUC crackers... it's genius. Again.

But it's probably best not to enquire into the ingredients too closely. Suffice it to say there are three different vegetable oils listed but only 5% dried cheese, and also glucose syrup. Despite the website listed on the packaging www.123healthybalance.com I conclude that this is not a healthy crispy snack.

But I knew that.

TUC crackers seem to be made by Jacobs Bakery based in the fabulously named Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire (I've always thought it was a great name for a place) in England (so British). But TUC is a registered trade mark of General Biscuits Belgie SA (and therefore Belgian), and seems also to be a registered trademark of United Biscuits (UK) Limited (and thus British). Confused? I am.

But whoever makes this crispy crunchy cheesy snack I don't care. It's terrifically tasty and seriously good. Yum!

Jacob's Cheesonal Mini Cheddars Original

Cheesonal? Yes, I'm afraid so.

I found this tub of Cheesonal Mini Cheddars in the crisp cupboard left over from last Christmas. Don't worry. Christmas snacks always last for at least 6 months so trying this cheesy snack won't kill me or the reluctant taste testers. But still I thought we had better try them sooner rather than later.

Last Christmas (that's 2014) was all about shape in the world of crispy snacks. Cheeselets (usually square) turned into tree-shaped Treeselets, and Mini Cheddars (usually round) suddenly became bell- and snowman-shaped. There were also KP Cheese & Tomato Christmas Crackers in tree, bell and star shapes.

I am not fully convinced that bells and snowmen are the correct shapes to signify Christmas. After all, you get bells all year round. And in this country at least, you are more likely to build a snowman in January or February than at Christmas time. However, both bells and snowmen feature on endless greetings cards so I suppose that's that.

The Christmas Tree-shaped Treeselets seem more Christmassy but pondering other potential Christmassy shapes; perhaps Cheesonal Mini Cheddars in the shape of the baby Jesus wouldn't be very... tasteful?

The reluctant taste testers didn't have much to say but they finished a large bowl of these with no trouble at all. So I deduce that they were well received.

And I liked them. Pretty much just like the usual cheesy Mini Cheddar taste. Which is very tasty. But probably better if eaten in December in a more festive spirit.

Jacob's Treeselets

Oh yes! Jacob's fabulous Cheeselets now come in tree form. Of course they do.

And they're called Treeselets. Obviously.

I've written about Cheeselets before of course, and they are one of my very favourite cheesy snacks. You can read about them here if you like, because, you know, I'm not going to repeat what I said about these terrific little cheesy biscuits in September 2013.

But hey! Now they come in the shape of a Christmas tree.

Can't decide if the Christmas tree form is a little bit brilliant or a little bit sad. Still ultra tasty though.

For scale, this little tree is sitting on the smallest size of post-it: 38 x 51mm. And I thought it would be appropriate to photograph the tub in front of my tree books.

I guess this is a Christmas 2014 special. We'll see if they appear again in the future. 

Jacob's Cheeselets

Once upon a time Jacobs Cheeselets came in small cardboard boxes. And weren't they made by Peek Freans?

I must have tried them sometime, probably a long long time ago, because when I joined a family where eating Cheeselets was almost a religion I recognised the taste at once. But by this time, for some reason, Cheeselets had become a seasonal snack. Available in tubs and only at Christmas, they were something to look forward to.  Almost as eagerly anticipated as the skiing season (you have no idea!).

Available only as part of a range which included the fabulous Cheese Footballs (more about these later in the year no doubt) mini Cheddars and Twiglets (these have always been available year round), but not always then. Smaller supermarkets sometimes simply never  received supplies of these little square snacks. One of the staff at our local Waitrose (herself a Cheeselets fan) admitted to me that it was a mystery to her, but the same every year. But suddenly last year Cheeselets became available in rather square - presumably to match the shape of the snack - blue bags all year round. Why the change? Who knows. 

The odd thing about Cheeselets is that they aren't really very cheesy. Tasty, certainly, and very savoury. But cheesy? The ingredients list claims they are made with dried cheese and cheese flavouring. So why don't they taste of cheese? Another who knows it seems. Although maybe it's only me. Even the flavour dust that sticks to your fingers isn't particularly cheesy. So, not very cheesy, but you can't stop eating them.

However, having mourned the unavailabilty of Cheeselets for most of the year, and rushed at the first opportunity to buy vast supplies for Christmas, we find the allure of this small square biscuit has been quite spoilt by year round stocks at "all good retailers".

Yes. I know this is a childish reaction but what can you do?

The packaging trumpets the fact that Cheeselets are baked not fried. Very much healthier I imagine. But I am fairly sure they were nicer fried not baked. And wasn't there more flavour dust to be licked off your fingers?

On the other hand, they remain an awfully good and extremely tasty biscuity snack. Absolutely superb with chilled dry sherry - which we almost never have in the house and I don't know why not. If we are going to have Cheeselets all year round I ought to do something about the sherry supplies.

A day later: so now I can sit down at the weekend with a small glass of manzanilla and a little dish of Cheeselets (thus avoiding the awful trap of guzzling a whole bag all at once) and enjoy a kleine Pause like a grownup.

The little dish was a present from Christine when she lived in Morocco and has greengages in it.
The glass is supposed to be 18th century. (You can see this is turning into World of Interiors).

Oh, and Cheeselets aren't square at all but rectangular. Which is a bit of a surprise because I have always though of them as square. And, another surprise, each one has 5 little holes punched in it. Still not cheesy though.