A Bad Idea...? (Tempting Rasperry Yoghurt Swirls Little Notions)

Name: angeelu

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Product:	Tempting Rasperry Yoghurt Swirls Little Notions
Date:	08/08/05 (448 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Interesting idea, nice packaging

Disadvantages: Expensive, sickly, not suitable for vegetarians

Little Notions are sweets for girls. On launching them Nestle openly stated that they are designed to appeal to the 'girlie logic' of 20 - 35 year old women. The Little Notions brand is supposed to make each treat easier for women to justify by using their 'girlie logic'. These are apparantly the logically illogical reasons women find to feel less guilty about indulging themselves (e.g. I went to the gym yesterday so deserve a treat today, or they've got raspberry and yoghurt in so how bad for you can they be?!)

Little Notions currently come in three varieties: Tempting Raspberry Yoghurt Swirls, Moreish Coconut Wafer Bites and Lovely Lemon Cheesecake. This review focuses on the Tempting Raspberry and Yoghurt Swirls.

How Will You Spot Them??
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Little Notions are packaged in little silver packets, kind of crisp bag style, with the Little Notions logo, name of the sweet and a cartoon picture accompanied by a little notion on the front. On the front of the Tempting Raspberry Swirls packet is the notion 'I'll go to the gym tomorrow, and there's a stick person with her feet up in front of the telly.
The reverse of the packet gives you a look at what the sweets will look like, with a picture of a whole sweet and one bitten in half in the top right corner. You'll also find all the nutritional info, barcode, ingredients and standard info on the back of the packets. The packaging is supposed to look modern and contemporary and it achieves this.

Inside the Packet
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On opening the packet you'll probably be disappointed to see there's only 5 sweets in the packet. At 64p per packet these are fairly expensive for what you get, but they're supposed to be a sophisticated treat according to Nestle's marketing information, so you're supposed to be satisfied with what you get. There's not much in the way of scent when you open the package, just a faint sweet smell.

Each sweet is a dome shaped chocolate swirl marbled in white and pink. Bitten in half you'll see that the inside of the sweet looks like a whipped pink mousse, though its texture is much solider than mousse. This is coated in a blend of what I can only describe as a marbled mixture of white and raspberry candy/chocolate. Nestle's description says they are 'lightly whipped raspberry and yoghurt centre in a marbled shell'.

Taste-wise these are very sweet and a little sickly - five actually is enough once you get eating them. The coating tastes like cheap white chocolate - disappointing considering Nestle make the fabulous Milky Bars. The inside does taste raspberry like but it's also very sweet and sugary tasting. The aftertaste of eating each sweet is fairly sickly - not really reminiscent of eating either raspberries or yoghurt.

Nutrition
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So, onto the nutritional content - after eating the five sweets in the packet you'll have consumed 13.3g of fat... there's 35.4g of fat per 100g. Calorie wise there's 213 kcal per packet - 566kcal per 100g. Per sweet values are given as 43kcal and 2.7g of fat. Unsuprisingly the first two listed ingredients are vegetable fat and sugar. The yoghurt content is provided by 2% of the ingredients being yoghurt powder... as for the fruit content, 0.75% of the ingredients are raspberry powder.

They may contain nut traces, so avoid if you have a nut allergy. They're not listed as being suitable for vegetarians (although the Little Notions Coconut Wafer Bites and Lemon Cheesecake Finger are) due to the presence of colour E120.

The Verdict?
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I won't be buying these. At 64p they are very expensive considering they don't really leave you feeling that satisfied. They will temporarily satisfy a sugar craving, but they won't really fill a gap if you're feeling a bit hungry. They look fantastic and are a great idea, but would be so much better if the coating was proper white chocolate (Milky Bar) and maybe if the centre was more yoghurty or mousse like - a bit like the similar kind of sweets you can get in Thorntons.

They don't seem to be too widely available... more the kind of thing you'll find in the supermarket than in the corner shop.

So - buy if you're curious, have an extremely sweet tooth or like the idea of buying a 'sophisticated snack', avoid if you like chocolate, begrudge spending over 50p on your sugar fix and think Dairy Milk is sophisticated enough!

Star rating - 2 out of 5 * *
(mainly for being an interesting idea)

Summary: Sickly, expensive and not suitable for vegetarians... I wouldn't bother...