In Iceland yesterday buying a few bits, I spotted these Mr Kipling Caramel Oatibakes at the side of the checkout and picked them up to have a look. When I realised that they didn't have chocolate in or on, and were caramel flavour, and, as I like oats, (not in porridge, but in cookies and things), I popped a pack in the basket as for £1 they looked quite nice.

The packaging for these is a little over the top. First you have a cardboard box, then inside that is a plastic tray. Inside that, each oatibake is individually wrapped in it's own plastic wrapper. I guess they're done this way so that they can be put in lunchboxes easily, but I don't really understand why we need a box AND a tray AND individual wrapping you know. It does seem rather a waste.

I have to say these look very nice. The plastic wrapper is mostly clear letting you see the bake inside. It looks kind of like bakewell sponge topping with a layer of caramel in the middle and more of the spongy stuff underneath.

When you open the packaging the smell is really nice, very caramelly and sweet smelling, and from the first bite the taste doesn't disappoint either. Like a bakewell these are quite crumbly though, so you do sort of want to hold your hand under your chin as you bite, otherwise you could find yourself losing large chunks to the floor. These are quite small, 7.5cm long x 3 x 2 roughly. Not a huge cake, but to be honest, the sweetness of these really means you wouldn't want more. In fact, the second mouthful was ok but the third (and final one), left me feeling slightly sickly. The oats are there, but they're not really part of the mixture properly like they are in a cookie or something, it's more like it's a bakewell sponge mixture with some oats thrown in just near the end so that they could jump on the bandwagon and 'do' oats you know. The cake is really nice and moist though unlike some cake bars that you can get, so that was good.

I have to say I did feel rather as if this cake bar had been created just purely to jump on a bandwagon it was almost like they'd designed the cake bar, and then oats became fashionable and so at the last minute they decided to add them for the hell of it. They just don't really work so well in this is all. Oats need to bind with other ingredients like butter, syrup, flour, brown sugar and raisins to work well I think. In a cake like this they just sit there being well individual oats.

The other thing is, although I expect cakes to be bad for me, people do often tend to think of things with oats in as being healthier - well don't be deceived, these are definitely not healthy! Each oatibake only weighs about 43g and yet it contains a massive 9 grams of fat, and 12g of sugar! About the only semi healthy thing about it is that it doesn't contain any artificial colours or flavours.

I know Mr Kipling is renowned for making 'exceedingly good cakes' but I have to say I think he's let himself down here as these are certainly not exceedingly good. They're exceedingly sweet, and exceedingly crumbly, and even exceedingly unhealthy, but that's about it I'm afraid. Not one I'll be recommending to anyone I don't think, and certainly something I won't bother buying again.