Today's Review: Cadbury Blackcurrant Bite Mini Rolls & McVitie's Screamin' Sour Blackcurrant Cake Bars

With all that pre-Christmas excitement yesterday, I forgot that I've picked up a few Halloween treats lately too. Halloween means trick or treaters. Less so here than in America, but it does happen. Trick or treaters means sweet companies churning out all kinds of Halloween themed products with the hope that they'll be bought and chucked into the buckets of costumed children on the big night. Now, lollies, treat size chocolate bars and gummy sweets I'd understand, but would one expect to receive a Mini Roll during a trick or treat? Cadbury seem to think so, enough to put "Trick or Treats" on the front of these mini rolls. What makes them Halloween themed Mini Rolls? Not much, really, but they are "Blackcurrant Bite" flavour, and there's a vampire in the picture. Spooky. 

Inside though, it's just a perfectly normal Mini Roll. The jam is certainly blackcurrant flavoured, but as you can see, there's hardly any there. The sponge and creamy filling are as nice as ever, but it's a decidedly less than average Mini Roll. At least with the strawberry version you can actually taste the jam. I certainly wouldn't buy any of these to give to kids on Halloween, they'd probably just end up egging my house out of pure spite.

My rating: 2/5

I'm not even sure any cake bar could be considered an adequate "treat" on such a spooky evening. But wait... What's this? A competitor appears!

McVitie's have also brought out some Halloween cake bars, and they're also blackcurrant flavour. I guess blackcurrant is the spookiest flavour (after blood orange of course). This bar is described as "an eye-watering blend of ghoulish purple sponge, dark crackly chocolate and a sour blackcurrant filling". That sounds more like it, let's take a look inside.

Yeah, these look good. Ghoulish indeed, the sponge is a wonderful dark purple, and it goes really well with the dark chocolate, which is indeed quite crackly. The best part, however, is the filling. As you can see, there's quite a thick layer on top, and while it's not overly sour, there's certainly a very nice tangy taste to it, and the whole bar comes together in a sweet, sour, chewy, gooey experience. This is what Halloween food should be about. Dark colours, odd textures, strange flavours. These cake bars are delicious, it's a shame that they'll probably only be around for Halloween. Still, as far as Halloween treats go, McVitie's have definitely won the trick or treat cake bar battle.

My rating: 5/5