Vegan snack review round-up

Here's a round up of all the vegan snack odds and sods I've discovered recently. I like to pretend that I I spend a very healthy life grazing on activated nuts and lucuma powder and heritage vegetables, but you're more likely to find a big packet of biscuits in my house than any of these things. You're also likely to find me with my snout stuck in said packet of biscuits, like a pig after truffles.

My favourite biscuit crush of the moment is Lucy's Oatmeal Cookies.

Lucy's cookies are a bit of a masterclass in how to do gluten free and vegan biscuits right. They're lovely and light, and without that weird chalky taste that you can get in some other brands I can call to mind. At £3, they're not cheap, but the box is a reasonable size and would last a human of normal willpower a decent amount of time. If you're that human (as I can be on rare occasions), I can report they also last a solid amount of time without going soft or soggy. 

Ask me what I would have thought the most overrated biscuit of all time was, and I'd have to say the Hob Nob. I remember eating them and wondering why people went mad about them, when they mainly tasted like someone had swept up all the dust and crumbs from a biscuit factory floor and fashioned it into a fresh biscuit. Gruesome.  

Then I found the Dove's Farm Fruity Oat biscuits, which I reckon are somewhere between Hob Nobs and dead fly biscuits (that's what we used to call them when we ate them as kids, I think their given name is 'McVities fruit shortcakes', but that didn't make us laugh the way 'dead fly biscuits' did.)

As well as beating the Hob Nob as its own game, the Fruity Oat gets a cheeky for salute for having the right sort of structural consistency for tea dunking (is dipping biscuits in tea an Englishy thing? For some reason, I have a feeling it is). Either way, Doves Farm have provided a solid cuppa accompaniment.

The snack of my dreams right now are these wondrous items, Corn Peanuts:

Imagine if you had a Wotsit that had had a love child with a bag of peanuts, and Corn Peanuts would be sort of it. Or, if you'd rather, imagine you'd managed to crossbreed packing peanuts with peanut butter into a lovely edible creation. Don't imagine too hard how you'd go about doing either of those things though, otherwise you'll never want to eat these beauties, and that would be a real shame.

If you're of a mindset that eschews foods that need elaborate metaphors to explain them, and would rather eat something that's a bit more like a cereal bar, I can help you there too.

Squirrel Sisters are a relatively new addition to the world of vegan cereal bars, and currently makes four flavours: raspberry ripple, coconut cashew, cacao orange, and cacao brownie. They cost around £2 to £2.50 a pop, so they're not cheap.

For your cash, you get two dainty little bars in a pretty cardboard tray, like you're eating some fancy vegan Twix thing or something. For £2.50, I'm not sure I want something dainty - I'd like something more doorstop sized to be honest. The packaging's pretty, the taste is nice, but the price to size ratio is a bit whack. (Or I am a bit greedy and parsimonious? That's also possible.)

Are you sick of all things salted caramel yet? I'm not. I'm really not. Despite the ubiquity of salted caramel (I swear I saw a salted caramel shampoo the other day), I still love it, and if I could work out to make salted caramel toast, or salted caramel crisps, I totally would.

Naturally, then, I love Booja Booja's Almond Salted Caramel chocolates. Thoughtfully, Booja Booja sell them in two-packs - thoughtfully because normally I can't afford a whole box, and also thoughtfully because if I did buy a whole box, I'd snarf it all in a single day.

This rather lovely little truffle twosome will set you back a wallet-friendly £1.20 or so, and is worth every heavenly penny.