We extol the StressBusting™ impact of Product Reviews in our post entitled "The StressBusting™ value of Product Reviews" coupled with our post entitled "Extend your Vocabulary to Stressbust™".
One of our favourite gifts on Xmas Day was a box of “Foxes (Since 1853) Classic Biscuit Collection”.
Now, biscuits being a very serious business for millions of coffee and tea lovers around the world like ourselves, we couldn’t resist the opportunity to make our tasting (not in one session, might we add!) the subject matter of our first Product Review post.
Exercises like this (whether you blog the results or not) can be a hugely enjoyable individual or joint pastime that opens a fun and creative stressbusting™ dialogue outside the norm.
Because such review exercises draw you into a full sensual appreciation of the present, they could also be classed as an extremely pleasant but interactive and low maintenance form of meditation you can build into your day, the stressbusting™ values of which are well recognised. See for example our post entitled "StressBustingTechniques to Manage & Calm Overwhelm" .
Reviewing a film, a book, a website, a restaurant meal or even this post could achieve the same benefits (so feel free to send us your own product reviews!).
We intend to address the value of meditation more specifically in a separate blog so, without further ado, see our individual Foxes biscuits reviews and rating results below in the order we were physically attracted to try the biscuits when looking at them in the open box, followed by our conclusion on the box as a whole.
The Fabulous Triple Chocolate Cookie
An unburdened but rich, sticky chewy melt with meaningful chocolate chunks that leave nothing to the imagination.
This robust number could double up as a dessert deserving of a dollop of clotted cream. A real winter blues buster!
Rating: a highly credible 7/10
Favourites Milk Chocolate Viennese
This sugary digit didn’t quite step up to the mark for us.
A rather ‘rusk like’ weaning texture that lent itself more to crumbling away for ease of digestion than holding its own in the ultimate challenge for any ‘Finger Biscuit’ – the Tea Dip Test.
Slightly disappointing chocolate content as well for a biscuit whose brand has always carried connotations of ‘luxury’.
Rating: a disappointing 4/10
The Fabulous Chocolatey Milk Chocolate Round
This looks like the boss of the box and my it did not disappoint.
An ideal chocolate to biscuit ratio gave a luxurious true to form quality texture and taste that endured long after the final satisfying bite.
A stand alone titan demanding full attention that’s only slight failing is it could have been a little bigger.
Rating: an excellent 9/10
Fabulous Milk Chocolate Cookie
By George, this one looks the part.
And it happily delivers.
The tasty but non overwhelming chocolate chunks enable the nutty hints of the cookie dough to lead, and it is a perfect match
Rating: a commanding 8/10
Favourites Butter Crinkle Crunch
Not one for the family vault.
A slight buttery vanilla aftertaste is sadly no compensation for what was an underwhelming performer which could perhaps be enhanced by the addition of some white chocolate chunks.
But as it stands, this sits well behind other traditional shortcake brands.
Rating: an uninspiring 5/10 for the mildly satisfying aftertaste
Favourites Double Choc Crunch Cream
Not the most attractive of biscuits, bless it, but we gave this a shot with an open mind unfettered by cosmetic discrimination.
Alas, it failed to rapture, however.
Its sticky consistency made it a rather chewy like affair, anodyne and “unbuscuitlike”.
Even a quick dunk didn’t engender any impressive phoenix qualities, rendering it instead simply messy on the fingers.
Rating: a very poor 3/10, lacking looks, charisma and redeeming charm
Favourites Jam ‘n’ Cream
Just as we thought we were on a slippery slide to biscuit mediocrity, out popped this number which turned things right around.
A veritable funfair of tastes, involving a generous amount of cream with wonderfully runny jam sandwiched by sumptuous tasty shortcake.
Neither of us have ever been big fans of this particular variety of biscuit – we have always been ‘Dodger Dodgers’ - so our enjoyment was all the more pleasing for its surprise.
Were these biscuits to be boxed as a stand alone offering, then they would certainly be worth a purchase in their own right as we were left hungry for more.
Rating: a first class 9/10 (and nothing ‘jammy’ about the score!)
Favourites Golden Crunch Cream
We didn’t really get a lot from this one.
Good serving of cream, but not overwhelming in the taste department.
The biscuit had a nice crumbly texture but again, failed to inspire as a natural dance partner to the creamy centre.
Rating: a jack average 5/10
Fabulous Milk Chocolate Fudge Sundae
We had high hopes as we unwrapped the golden cover on this one.
But it certainly wasn't Charlie's golden ticket to chocolate wonderland.
Extremely rich and we struggled to consume quick enough to avoid it melting in our hands.
Perhaps better out of the fridge.
Rating: a respectable enough 7/10 (though all that glitters is not gold)
Favourites Chocolate & Cream Viennese
Not a great deal better than its paler counterpart, this felt rather like eating the side remnants from a baking tin that previously contained a full overdone chocolate cake.
Not the closing winner we’d hoped for.
Rating: a just beyond average 6/10
Conclusion
It is obvious from the results that we generally favour the “Fabulous” branded biscuits over the “Favourites” (go on then, call us posh!) and we think perhaps to so call the latter is slightly misleading when pitching them alongside the Marvellous varieties (at least in our case, though we suspect we may not be alone 😄!).
There are some (Fabulous) gems in this box but also some very run of the mill (Favourite) outings.
At a cost of £4.00 for the box which contains 2 tiers, it is overall very good value against e.g. buying separate packs of multiple biscuits for an event or against other box competitors, so is a strong sugar investment.
Would we buy again?
Definitely, were it the only Foxes box offering.
But our subsequent online market research (see our posts entitled "Embrace Technology to Stressbust™ and "Engage your 'Inner Sherlock' to Stressbust successfully") has shown us there are dedicated separate “Marvellous” boxes for a similar price.
And albeit they only have one tier of biscuits, they include “Marvellous” biscuits not included in the compilation box we received.
So, on balance, we would sacrifice the extra volume of “Favourites” in our compilation box for a box dedicated exclusively to “Marvellous” (which we have already done!), and buy a separate pack of Jam ‘n’ Creams as a side dish.
We hope you found the above fun and interesting.
And look out for more stressbusting™ product review posts in the weeks to come!
Biscuity love, LouLoU&MikeyM™ xxxx☺💘💞 xxxx