WIN! Doves Farm Flapjacks and Cereal Bars + Review

First things first: these products were sent to me, for free, to review. However, everything written below is my own words and opinions and I’m not receiving payment for it.

I have just spent a happy breakfast time with a large cup of tea and five Doves Farm Organic cereal and flapjack bars to test. I’d blog for the love of it anyway but moments like this are a rather nice treat. What’s even better is, I can share the joy with you because I am proud to say I have my first competition to run.

Two of you could win a lovely cotton Doves Farm bag with 2 of each type of Doves Farm Organic cereal and flapjack bars inside. You can find out how to enter at the end of this post.

You could win this (and some)

There are 5x40g bars in each box. I got to try 2 flapjack bars, 2 cereal bars and 1 rice bar. It seems appropriate that as it’s currently Fairtrade Fortnight (7/02/12-11/03/12) each bar gives a percentage of ingredients which are “certified to international food standards”. So, onto the tastings:

Banana, Mango & Brazil Cereal Bar (30% fairtrade, wholegrain, a source of fibre)

Deeelish! This was easily my favourite of the range. Whilst the pineapple and coconut are not mentioned in the name, you can really taste them. The combination of zingy fruity flavours really cuts through the sugar syrup which holds the oats and rice together. There’s a good percentage of fruit in these bars and I was particularly happy to find some rather chunky pieces of brazil nut. I’ve found in the past that nut content in bars like this can be a bit stingey so it was a definite plus point. Also, given that I don’t usually like pineapple this bar gets extra bonus points.
(80p each or £2.99 per box at http://www.dovesfarm.co.uk)

Sultana, Apricot & Apple Cereal Bars (43% fairtrade, low salt, low fat)

A mixture of oats and cornflakes, I could still detect the granulated sugar in these bars when eating them, which I found a bit odd. It also made me focus more on how sweet they were. I wish the fruit was allowed to come through more as there was a generous amount of it. And, whilst I love the idea of including sesame seeds for a bit of nuttiness, it was hard to pick the taste out. Don’t get me wrong, I could still happily munch a whole bar but I’d feel like I could have eaten something more obviousely naughty (see all butter flapjack!)
(59p each or £2.25 per box)

Crispy Chocolate & Rice Bar (32.3% fairtrade, low salt)

As you can see, the bottom layer was chocolate covered puffed rice, and the top was plain with chocolate chips. I like that there were two layers so that you got a good amount of chocolate, but I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed in the chocolate – it was more sugary than chocolatey. This bar is definitely more for an instant energy boost with a strong cup of coffee in the afternoon rather than a breakfast bar. I reckon they are pretty good value ( 50p each or £1.99 a box ) but I’d pay a bit more for good quality chocolate.

All Butter Flapjacks (32.4% fairtrade, low salt, wholegrain, source of fibre)

A close second for me. I am a bit of a fickle flapjack fan – some days I want giant oats barely held together by a slick of golden syrup and other days I want dense rolled oats squashed up into a solid brick of sugary buttery goodness. These fit into the latter category and luckily for them, I was having that kind of flapjack day! Lovely and crumbly, these flapjacks are perfect for dunking in a cup of tea. If I had to make one tweak, it would be that again they are rather on the sweet side and there’s still a slight texture of granulated sugar.
(40p each or £1.69 per box)

Apple & Sultana Flapjacks (25% fairtrade low salt, wholegrain, a source of fibre )

Again, I was pleasantly surprised to find generous amounts dried apple in this which added a bit of feel-good fruit to the sugary, buttery crumbly flapjack. I’ll be honest, if I was going for all-butter flapjack I’d probably go the whole hog for the pure butter version but this is a great variation
(40p each or £1.69 per box)

Doves farm use Palm oil from sustainable organic farms in Columbia, no genetically modified ingredients, no controversial additives (I’d love to know what falls into that category!) and no hydrogenated fat. All prices are from http://www.dovesfarm.com at the time of writing

Now, onto that… ;

COMPETITION!

You can enter the competition to win a Doves Farm goody bag and taste these lovelies in two ways:

1) Leave a comment at the bottom of this post saying which type of bar would be your favourite (you might get extra if you win!)

2) Follow @gillbla and Tweet the following “Mmm there’s a @Dovesfarm cereal & flapjack bar giveaway at #talesofpiglingbland I’ve entered and you could too http://wp.me/p1wtD8-dO” and I’ll keep a note of everyone who does, using the hashtag. You may tweet once each day, but you can gain extra entries by tweeting multiple days

Closing date: 18th March

Small print:

• I will post the prizes by normal royal mail. Once I’ve posted them, I can’t be held responsible if they get lost
• You may tweet once a day for multiple entries, but only one blog comment will count.
• If I can’t get a response from you on email or twitter by 22nd March I will pass the prize on to someone else.
• I will generate the winner by random, but my decision is final
• There’s no cash alternative and it’s only open to UK residents (sorry!)

This post is written with the Bloggers Voluntary Code of Fair Practice in mind.

If you think anything I have written goes against this, please let me know and I will deal with it immediately.