Walkers Sensations Oven Roasted Peanuts Honey and Salt Flavour

Here we go again, another year, another snack to write about, and just for a change (not) here’s another packet of nuts. Because I wanted to compare Honey Roast Peanuts with Honey and Salt flavour nuts.

You might suppose that they would be pretty nearly identical but you would be wrong. The Honey and Salt are much less sweet than the Honey Roast, and considerably more salty. Much more to my taste. Lots of delicious flavour dust. Very nice. 

But sadly the peanuts are not so good. Smaller and harder than KP nuts usually are. 

However, this is a good option if you fancy a sweet and salty nut.

I wonder why Walkers chose Californian honey? Surely there is plenty of honey produced in the UK, or failing that, Europe?

KP Honey Roast Peanuts

I am continuing my quest to see if I really like any flavour of peanut better than the regular salted kind. And I think it’s possible that I don’t.

This Honey Roast flavour (source of protein, high in fibre) is quite sweet (made with glucose syrup - no wonder it’s so sweet), and I am not sure that’s what I want from a peanut. Oh dear, I seem to be a lot pickier than I used to be.

I read that grief can cause changes to your sense of smell and taste, but a year after my dear husband died, although I am still grieving, I am not sure this is a good excuse. I guess I just don’t like the sweetness anymore. Maybe age also affects your sense of taste?

Honestly, I’m sure I remember enjoying Honey Roast peanuts. And the peanuts in this case seem pretty good. So don’t pay any attention to me not enjoying them as much as I once did. Even though I don’t even feel like finishing the packet. 

Maybe I will try another flavour… and there are some flavoured peanuts on sale in my local supermarket that I have never attempted. 

Y’all know what peanuts look like, so no extra photos.

The Chef 
He changed my life forever and never tried to change me
1951 - 2024

M&S Dry Roasted Peanuts

I was in M&S recently, picking up some cold meat that I could have for supper when I came home from staying with friends. And I casually snatched up this packet of Dry Roasted Peanuts to eat on the train.

I generally love Dry Roasted Peanuts but haven’t eaten any for quite a while, so I was sure I would enjoy these. But I didn’t check the list of ingredients which I discovered later features smoked salt. This significantly altered the taste of these peanuts and created a flavour I wasn’t expecting. Not the reassuring taste of your regular Dry Roasted, but a very strong smoky flavour.

Not nasty, just unexpected. I really think the addition of smoked salt should be in the name of the snack. However, the packet seems to be designed to be difficult to read.

I finished the packet over several days, and quite enjoyed them. But I think I would have been happier without the smoked salt. Very nice quality peanuts though.

KP Original Salted Peanuts

A big display of large packets of KP Original Salted Peanuts beckoned to me in the supermarket today. Buy us! they cried. But I was very firm and only picked up a small 90g packet (peanuts are heavy - that’s less than it sounds). And when I got home I asked myself if I had ever written up this very simple snack? No ingredients but peanuts and salt and sunflower oil. Delicious. But the answer, until now, was no. And my second question is why on earth not? So anyway, here we go…

Ah, you say. Lucky old you, you can eat peanuts without suffering any ill effects. Don’t boast about it. 

Well, yes, I can eat peanuts and I am fairly sure that I have been eating them since I was about three, so that’s more than 60 years! My parents didn’t really let us eat sweets, but there were always salty snacks instead. However, as a child I was horrendously allergic to grass pollen, and cats, and goodness knows how many other things. Even 30 years later I heard that the lovely mother of one of my school friends still had nightmares about the day she very kindly took her daughter and me for a picnic in a beautiful field full of flowering grasses. She thought I was going to die. So I do understand about allergies. 

I still am allergic to grass pollen and cats but nothing like so badly as I used to be. Put it like this, if I reached the final of an egg and spoon race this summer, I wouldn’t have to pull out because I couldn’t see. But looking at today’s weather I would need an umbrella.

Anyway, these salted peanuts, made without maple syrup or honey, with no chocolate chunks or bits of honeycomb in the bag, not even any herbs or jerk seasoning, just salt, are simply delicious. And I can definitely eat a whole bag while sitting on the sofa watching the tennis.

Highly recommended if you can eat them. 

Mysteriously distributed by Tayto Snacks in County Meath. I can’t work out if this is an Irish snack or a UK snack. I’m going for UK.

Vitaminka Stobi Flips with Peanuts

Slightly Red Haired Bristolian found this packet of crispy snacks in her local Turkish shop. She says the shop is full of interesting continental snacks she’s not seen before. So she bought this packet for the reluctant taste testers to try.

Stobi Flips are basically corn puffs with peanuts. This is a style of snack you don’t really get in the UK, but you do find it in France. And Israel. And apparently Macedonia too.

Actually if you’ve tried one of these peanut snacks I think you’ll wonder why we don’t get them in the UK. I mean, corn puffs are popular and peanuts are popular so why not a combination of the two?

The packet tells me that this was a “Macedonia superbrand” in 2009. And why not? This snack smells peanutty when you open the packet, has a soft crunch and really tastes savoury and peanutty. Not bad at all.

Giraffe fan taste tester (currently on maternity leave so we haven't heard from her in a while) introduced me to Bamba Peanut Snacks which I reviewed in 2013. She's a big fan. It was the first peanut snack I ever tried - that wasn't actually a peanut. And I wasn't quite prepared for the interesting taste/texture combination. So I gave it a less than enthusiastic review.

Well, I've taste tested a great many crispy snacks since then, so I've got used to all sorts. And learned to enjoy all sorts of snacks. Probably I would now recommend Bamba ahead of all the other peanut snacks that I've tried. But Stobi Flips aren't half bad. I ate quite a lot of them.

Walkers Sensations Californian Honey & Salt Oven Roasted Peanuts

Another packet of ostentatiously oven roasted peanuts. Just how are old style (you know, what we grew up with) nuts cooked? Tossed in a giant frying pan or something?

Here's a recipe explaining how to make salted peanuts at home. I never thought about soaking the nuts in brine but now I know. There are also recipes that explain how to do it without the oil, but where's the joy in that?

I wonder. Do you suppose that products labelled oven baked are cooked without oil, but those labelled oven roasted are cooked with oil while still managing to sound a little bit healthy. What do you think? There is certainly oil involved in this recipe, but perhaps there is no difference between baked and roast.

One of my cousins makes a really tasty Christmas Day treat of fresh almonds fried in butter and sprinkled with salt. It's really good. Hot buttery saltiness makes almonds so easy to eat with a glass of fizz. And I don't really like almonds much. I guess you could try this with other nuts too.

Anyway, these peanuts are a lot more complicated than ordinary salted peanuts, and thus, I daresay, even less good for you. Look at all the honey and salt, and the second ingredient after peanuts is sugar. No real surprise there, but remember to restrict your intake because they won't do your diet any good.

They do taste good. And I think the sweet/saltiness works very well.

But both the Chef and I thought the nuts are rather harder than we were expecting. I don't know why they should be quite so hard.

Zweifel Erdnüsse

I think we bought this little packet of Zweifel peanuts in the little bar on the train. The day we took 12 different trains, a funicular and a paddle steamer on the Brienzersee. That's the kind of fun day out you can have in Switzerland without getting too stressed.

We only had to run for one train and that was because our first train was uncharacteristically late. Someone standing on the platform shouted "Dépêche toi" at the Chef and he started to scuttle, and then to run to catch our connection. I started running too and I was thinking "oh no I'm running at altitude" (a lot harder than running at sea level as I'm sure you know). The Chef tells me it was only 500m but Wikipedia tells me it is a whole 658m above sea level. Which seems a lot when you live at about 85m above sea level. Actually I wasn't expecting our lhouse in London to be so high: you can discover so many exciting facts online. The flat in Switzerland is at 1500m. I wouldn't dream of running there.

For some reason this packet of Swiss peanuts was manufactured in Belgium. The world of crispy crunchy snacks is always full of surprises.

Tasty.

M&S Spirit of Summer BBQ Jerk Jumbo Coated Peanuts

Another packet of peanuts? Well, apparently yes.

Tall Elegant taste tester provided them as a Friday afternoon snack. As I said the other day M&S are getting rid of their Spirit of Summer stock and I expect she found these with the weird nuts & coconut combo that seems to have been vastly reduced.

I found the BBQ Jerk coating on these nuts seriously hot, and not particularly BBQ. But possibly (I've never had it) they lean toward the Jerk part of their flavouring.

Dutch taste tester took the remains of the pack home with her enthusiastically but history does not relate what the Vinyl Collector thought. Maybe she ate them all before she got home?

Perhaps not the flavour for me, and probably no longer available, but this style of coated nut may be just the thing if you like nuts and lots of hot spices.