Sweet Freedom 'Choc Shot' Liquid Chocolate

Choc Shot is like chocolate sauce in squeezey ketchup bottle. It caught my eye because it's just 14 calories a teaspoon and it's endorsed by John Torode and Greg Wallace. It's also GM free, dairy free, gluten free and low GI. As well as making hot chocolate you can spread it on toast and drizzle it over fruit, ice cream, pancakes, porridge and so on.

It's makes a cracking hot chocolate with very little mess and fuss. I just heat a mug of milk in the microwave and stir in 4 teaspoons of Choc Shot. That makes a 126 calorie hot chocolate (made with skimmed milk) which tastes pretty good. It's nice with plain vanilla ice-cream but I found it a bit rich on toast and pancakes.

Verdict: Great product, clean and easy to use, versatile and low calorie too. It's not overly sweet like many chocolate sauce products. Costs £3.59 a for 320g bottle which will make 16 mugs of hot chocolate. That works out at 23p per serving, which is not too bad. The nozzle on the bottle stays really clean and doesn't get sticky and messy at all which is a bonus too.

Caffe Cagliari iLove Espresso (Nespresso Compatible Capsules)

Caffe Cagliari is a family run Italian coffee company spanning four generations for over 100 years. They take coffee very seriously indeed. They use very high quality coffee beans and their website goes into much detail about the harvesting, processing and roasting.

April Tried and Tested Caffe Caliari Cups.jpg

Caffe Cagliari now make single serving espressp capsules which are compatible with Nespresso coffee machines. They currently have five varieties in the range: Espresso Ristretto, Elite, Creme, Grand Espresso and Deca (decaff). They cost £2.99 for 10 capsules and they range in flavour strength from 4-10. This works out at less than 30p a coffee which is pretty good value compared to other Nespresso pods.

April Tried and Tested Caffe Caliari Pods.jpg

Verdict: I love everything about Caffe Cagliari! I love the history, I love that it's a family business, I love the packaging and I love the flavour of the coffee! The Deca (decaf) was suprisingly good for a decaf coffee, which is always a good sign. The Espresso Ristretto at flavour strength 10 is good rocket fuel after a particularly bad night with the kids, but a little strong for me. My favourite was the Elite, lighter at flavour strength 4 but still with a rich aroma. It woke me up but didn't leave me twitching.

Savvy Spreads: Chocolate, Chocolate Agave and Agave

Savvy Spreads are a range of totally organic, totally natural exotic sweet spreads. They are free from gluten, wheat, dairy, refined sugar, soya, oils and additives. In other words and super-healthy sweet treat ideal for people with food allergies.

We tried the Chocolate, Chocolate Agave and Agave spreads from the savvy range. They can be spread on toast, crackers, oatcakes, stirred into porridge, spread on pancakes and so on. They can also be used in baking such a brownies. I'm keen to try it in my nutella brownies.

Verdict: It tastes remarkably good for something so healthy! I have a friend who is allergic to sugar, dairy and wheat so I'm delighted I can now bake something for her other than banana cookies. A great sweet treat for the kids spread on toast. Out of the three we tried the chocolate was a firm favourite in our house.

Disclosure: I was sent samples of these products and chose to write about them because I like them. All words, opinions and photographs are my own.

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