This week I treated myself to a gorgeous Jamie Oliver storage jar, which I found in a sale at Home Sense at the Trafford Centre in Manchester.
I have been discovering vegan sweets and buying them, putting them in a cupboard and forgetting about them. So, I thought, buy a pretty jar, put the sweets on display in my kitchen, and then I can nibble on one when I fancy (bad for my waistline!) and offer them out to friends and family when they visit (better for my waistline!), and show them just how yummy vegan sweets can be! In addition, all of the sweets I buy are from regular sweets shops, newsagents, grocery stores and supermarkets. Ordinary sweets which happen to be vegan, that's what TOV is all about!
The first two layers of sweets in my jar are Starburst (or as anyone over 25 will call them - Opal Fruits!) - I have a ordinary yellow tube packet, with the 'Original Flavours' and a share bag of 'Flavour Morphs'. I should point out that the US version of Starburst are made with a different recipe containing gelatine and therefore they are not vegan, but the UK site states that all of the UK flavours are vegan. Strange! Anyway, these are sold in pretty much every sweet-selling shop in the UK.
The third layer of sweets in my jar are made by Goody Good Stuff and are their 'Sour Fruit Salad' bag, which are jelly-like sweets, coated in sour sugar and are yummy. Goody Good Stuff sell eight varieties of sweets, all are vegetarian, using all natural colours and flavours. In addition, all are fat free, meat free, dairy free, alcohol free, gluten free, egg free, nut free, soy free, wheat free and gelatine free. So, they are great for people with allergies and food intolerances. However four of the eight varieties do contain beeswax and therefore are not suitable for vegans. The vegan varieties are: 'Cola Breeze', 'Summer Peaches', 'Sour Mix and Match' and 'Sour Fruit Salad'. These are sold in all of the major supermarkets and in some health food stores too.
The top layer of my jar is the 'Super Sour Chery Sweets' I found in the sweet shop in Manchester's Arndale Centre called 'A Quarter of Sweets' - read my review here.
I also eat Jelly Tots, Dib Dabs, Cherry Drops, Love Hearts, Palma Violets, Trebor Softmints, Rainbow Drops, Pear Drops and TicTacs. All of these are found in most UK sweet shops and supermarkets.
If you have trouble getting hold of any of these in your local shops, you can order them online from Sweet Expectations, which are a Vegetarian Society approved online sweet shop, who only sell vegetarian sweets and have checked every item they sell with the Vegetarian Society to make sure they are fully vegetarian and they have a useful 'Vegan Sweets Tab' on the side and top of their website which filters the sweets down further into vegan only brands and varieties. They also have a physical store in Kent, which I have never visited but if you are local to that area it may be worth going in for a browse.
So that's my guide to ordinary vegan sweets, if your favourite isn't on the list, leave me a comment below and share your favourite vegan sweets.
If you fancy something homemade and healthy instead of vegan junk food, come back tomorrow for my Vegan Recipe of the Week!
Big Vegan Love,
VVx
