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Sunday 18 March 2012

Oats So Simple: Extreme

I like cinnamon. I like sweets. I like instant porridge.

So imagine my delight when I spied Oats So Simple: Sweet Cinnamon in my local Sainsburys Local.

I quickly snapped up two giant packs of ten sachets without a second thought to whether it would be disgusting or not. After all, cinnamon porridge, what's not to like? (And it's sweet cinnamon too, not that horrible sour cinnamon. I am still waiting for Oats So Simple: Sour Cinnamon.)


BIG MISTAKE, A key problem with Oats So Simple: Sweet Cinnamon is that THEY FORGOT TO MAKE IT TASTE OF CINNAMON.

It's not particularly sweet either.

It tastes of approximately nothing. 1 out of 7. Hence forth, all mentions of OSS Sweet Cinnamon must have quote marks around the "Sweet Cinnamon" bit. Starting from now.

Anyway, in late 2011, I had a massive brainwave - why not eschew ordinary boring milk and replace with flavoured milk dans la porridge?

"Too sweet!" said the naysayers.
"You're an idiot!" said some other naysayers.
"You talking incessantly about porridge is getting on my nerves," said most people.

But all those people were wrong. Yes I am the first to agree it is mental - BUT - how else to correct Quaker's feeble attempt to actually make instant porridge oats that taste of something?

And, with a hefty surplus of OSS: "Sweet Cinnamon" sitting in the cupboard uneaten, it was either this or post them all back individually to Quakers HQ with the words "sweet cinnamon" crossed out and replaced with "sh-t cinnamon".
And no one wanted that.*

So here we go.

STEP ONE: Buy some flavoured milk - EG banana


STEP TWO: Put the OOS: "Sweet Cinnamon" into the pan. Pour the required amount of banana milk into the sachet, then add to the pan.


BOIL.


Not so Oats So Complicated right? OSS: "Sweet Cinnamon" and Banana - 6 out of 7.

But why stop there? Here's OOS: "Sweet Cinnamon" with Sainsburys White Chocolate and Raspberry Milk. (5 out of 7)


There's no reason why this can't be repeated with different OSS flavours combined with different flavoured milks. For example, OSS: Mango and Passion fruit with strawberry milk, or OSS: Golden Syrup with chocolate milk. Why not try your own combos?

BUT. Could the concept be taken one step further? What about adding a Honeycomb Choc Swirl Frijj Milkshake? "NOOOOOO" everyone shouted. But I didn't listen:


a DISGUSTING thick gloopy mess. Just shows you, some experiments can be taken too far.

Oats So Simple: "Sweet Cinnamon" and Honeycomb Choc Swirl porridge, 
Gobble Monkey says: 2 out of 7 

*least of all me, I've run out of stamps

Sunday 11 March 2012

The White Twix

PREPARE YOUR EYES FOR A SHOCK:


The fabled White Twix - right in front of your face.

I'd heard legends of the White Twix before - whispered on street corners or loudly discredited in branches of Thorntons - but no one had actually ever seen one.

But this, found by my friend Becks in an east London newsagent, is all too real.

On this evidence, it seems to have been smuggled in from the Netherlands:


Those crazy Dutch! I knew they were free-thinking sex drug maniacs, but a Twix with WHITE CHOCOLATE?!

Anything goes over there doesn't it?

Back when I worked in the Coco Pops slave labour camp factory, I once suggested to Coco Monkey that he made white chocolate coco pops . I spent three days in The Hole, but it was worth it for the look on his stupid face.

Needless to say, white chocolate is rubbish - there's a reason why there's not a single successful white chocolate bar / cereal / cream-cheese based spread. Have you ever met anybody that likes white chocolate who isn't a baby? No.

But if any chocolate bar could survive the conversion to white, it would be the all conquering Twix, voted Gobble Monkey Best Chocolate Bar from 1994-2011*

SO LET'S FIND OUT.


Like all albinos, the white Twix is normal and should be treated as such. But look, it's milky skin is so light you can almost see through it!


The taste? Well, imagine a standard Twix but covered with white chocolate instead of milk chocolate, and you're pretty much there.

Sadly, here the Twix's two-finger USP is rendered redundant - there's no point in have two fingers of white twix. One will always be enough before the sickly white chocolate taste over stays its welcome.

I'm fairly sure it is still highly illegal to import these from Holland, but if you hang around the right newsagents, you may be able to get your hands on one. They're normally under the counter, but just give the shopkeeper a wink and ask to see the specials. Why not give it a try? You could always give the second finger to a friend or a passing baby.

White Twix, Mars Nederland
Gobble Monkey says: 3 out of 7

*except 2001 when a shock result saw a Kinder Bueno taking the top slot. I don't know what happened there.