PRICE: £2.24 for a 1-litre tub at my local Morrisons

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION (per 100ml/53g serving):

Calories: 130
Kj: 540
Protein: 2.3g
Carbohydrate: 14.6g
(of which sugars): 12.6g
Fat: 6.8g
(of which saturates): 4.5g
Fibre: 0.1g
Sodium: Trace

INGREDIENTS:

Partially reconstituted skimmed milk powder, milk chocolate (11%), glucose syrup, vegetable oil, sugar, E471, E472a, natural flavourings, E412, E401, curcumin, annatto

ALLERGY ADVICE:

Contains milk. May contain wheat, egg & nuts

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Well, for me, ice cream season is almost over and I thought I'd give Cadbury's Flake Ice Cream a try, before sticky jammy steamed pudding weather really closes in.

The full price of this ice cream is mentioned above, but I managed to buy a tub reduced down to £1.49 as the use-by time was up the day after I bought it.

Cadbury's Flake Ice Cream comes in a square-ish bright yellow and purple coloured plastic carton - of a shade that's the same as a Cadbury's Flake chocolate bar. The lid shows the standard Cadbury's logo and an image of a scoop of the ice cream, plus a few Chocolate Flakes piled on top of one another. One side of the tub shows ingredients list in three different European languages, and on the base (in English) is the nutritional information, ingredients list, allergy advice, storage instructions and Cadbury's quality claim.

The ice cream inside is firm, and a pale, creamy colour, flecked with little chunks of Chocolate Flake, plus very very tiny speckles of milk chocolate. I detected no chocolate or vanilla-type smell on removing the lid (there is no mention of vanilla in the ingredients list, but it's possible that the term 'flavourings' could mean vanilla).

I left the tub to stand for a couple of moments, then dug a spoon inside, so as to serve myself a liberal portion of the ice cream. The ice cream was pretty hard, and I had to apply a lot of pressure to get the spoon to break the surface and sink in, but I didn't personally mind that as I like my ice cream very firm.

The Flake portions, though not overly generous, appeared adequate, and I settled down to try out the product, hoping for it to me yet another favourite to add to my list of favourite gorging items.

The first thing which struck as I sampled the first mouthful, was that the ice cream seemed rather powdery and grainy to me - and I could taste skimmed milk powder very strongly, almost as if I'd stuck my spoon in a tin of Marvel and eaten the contents, which I didn't find all that pleasant.

The taste of the ice cream overall was rather bland, and though they were very visible, the Chocolate Flake pieces seemed to have no flavour at all. Unimpressed, but nonetheless undeterred, I continued eating to see if the ice cream grew on me and would taste better as I went on.

Not so! All through the whole serving, I could taste this somewhat synthetic dried milk flavour, and the consistency was still powdery/grainy - I could even taste salt here and there in some mouthfuls - salty isn't how I like my ice cream to be!

Usually when I've had a serving of ice cream that is nice, I immediately want seconds, but this honestly is the very first time in my life where just one portion was ample, and I didn't feel the urge to raid the freezer again in order to pig out on the remainder. A very bad sign!

I grudgingly waded through the whole tub of ice cream - a bit later that day and the remainder the next day so as to eat it before the use-by date, whereas when eating a brand I enjoy, I just want to (and often do!) scoff the whole lot all at once.

I found the whole experience of Cadbury's Flake Ice Cream rather desperate, to say the least. It tasted pretty terrible, and the chocolate did nothing to enhance it as it had hardly any flavour. The horrible powdery-ness really put me off and I certainly won't be buying it ever again.

Was I just unlucky enough to lay my hands on a duff carton? It's hard to believe that Cadbury's can produce something this awful - it's not totally inedible, but it's way way way down, right at the bottom of my personal ice cream preference scale. It could be said that because the carton I bought was very close to its use-by date it may not have been at its best, but if that was so, why wasn't the use-by date earlier?

Sorry Cadbury's, but this ice cream comes highly un-recommended by me, and in future I'll be sticking to Mackies, Ben & Jerry's and Hagen Dazs.

Thanks for reading!