Hot-Shots TLC Cookies - Banana Minions product reviews

My kids love the minions so much that the Despiciple Me films are often called the other Minion movies with Gru. When we got this the kids were immediately excited, not just to see that these are minion themed but that they're also banana flavoured. I will state that this wouldn't be something that the kids and I would buy, because the ingredients list vegetable oil (Palm) as one of the ingredients and we do our best to not to purchase items with palm oil, unless it explicitly states that palm oil harvested from sustainable sources.

Opening these up I liked seeing small bite sized minions waiting to be sampled. The kids all clambered round wanting some and attempting the make sure they get one of each of the minions, there wasn't an even number of each of the different minions, but the kids didn't care. They all ate one each but straight away stated that they didn't quite like the flavour of these, I managed to convince them to try a couple more each however their initial thoughts on the taste stayed and thus the kids haven't touched these again. I tried a couple and had to agree with them, while I could taste a hint of banana, the overall flavour was one that was artificial and not nice at all.

While we like the minions in this house, these minions were not a hit.

Minion cookies were a hit in this house with all 4 kids and 2 adults. The banana flavour in them was amazing and were so true to what was on the box. These also come in a multi pack which was perfect for school. Kids are always asking when they can have them again. But only down fall is that they are so hard to find, being available a lot more would make this house very happy.

They are nice and smooth biscuits not to sharp or to small so good for all ages. Price per this box is on point, Think it fits in find with the amount in the box, same also goes for the multipacks great value for money. Actually brought last time I seen them a few packets and gave a couple away to friends to try as they had yet tried them and their kids also raved about them, Again only down fall is not being available in all supermarkets, we actually found ours at the warehouse in the clearance bins so guessing not to many people liked them, we grabbed a good chunk of them. Great product and great value for money, and will still recommend to others.

Miss 4 is crazy about the Minions and so I knew that these were going to appeal to her when I saw them come up for review. When I told her that I was off to collect some review goodies and that these were likely to contain Minion cookies she straight away wanted to come along, as soon as we got to the front door to pick these up it was "please can I have some Minion cookies", then came the hard choice... did we want banana or chocolate? Banana was the winner and Miss 4 didn't let these cookies out of her sight, let alone her hands!

We got home and had to try them out. The box is really well designed to target children with the bright colours and the friendly Minion characters which are displayed on the box, i'd say there won't be many Minions fans out there who would be able to walk past this product on a supermarket shelf without asking if they can buy it! The box was easy enough to open and I was surprised to see that there was just one large box of cookies rather than 10 or so individual packages which I find is a common thing with mini cookies such as these. I gave 5 cookies to Miss 4 and got 5 out for myself and the first thing I noticed that these were in different shapes of different characters from the movie, Miss 4 thought this was quite neat and loved naming them all, I think we managed to come across 5 different characters throughout the box.

Taste Wise I was quite impressed they had a nice banana flavour to them, it was overly powerful or to artificial tasting which was good and they also weren't to dry or hard, they were of a good texture for young children to eat. Miss 4 had a few friends over and I served these up to them and they all enjoyed them, of course they did get a bit silly as they ate and talked about "banana". I offered the girls some nutella to dip them into aswell as some thick caramel sauce and white chocolate spread and they thought it was an absolute treat being able to dip their cookies, especially Miss4 who I had introduced to Dunkaroos in Australia, she was over the moon about being able to make her own Dunkaroos as the box id brought home had run out!

I needed to make a morning tea shout for work where the theme was 'tiny' and so I decided these would be ideal to use. The plan was to make some tiny banoffee pies in shot glasses. I crushed up about 10 of these cookies in a blender and then divided this between the shot glasses, before topping them with whipped cream sliced banana and caramel sauce and lastly a Minion cookie and crumbed chocolate flake to the tops. Everyone at work commented on how cute these looked, and said they enjoyed the not too strong taste of the cookies.

These are a great product for both children and adults alike. They make a great lunch box snack for children and would be ideal as a party snack food, especially one that is Minion themed!

Soooo.... Minions. Small, yellow, love bananas. Famous and loved by people of all ages, on the screen at least, but are they loved by adults and kids alike in biscuit form? Mostly... in this case. I cracked the box open with Mr9 as my willing assistant, and we both grabbed a handful of these teeny, mischief-making minions to try.

For me, I found them to be fairly tasty, though I will admit the banana flavour was a lot milder than I could have hoped for. Each one was a tiny snack, so I would say "1 portion" would have been somewhere between 8-12 individual cookies. Because I have sensitive, and somewhat fragile teeth, I found them to be a bit too hard to really enjoy until I dunked them in warm milk or hot drinking chocolate - then they became a lot more pleasurable to eat.

For Mr9, they were spot on from the first bite. He delighted in chomping off their heads, or doing little role-plays with them on the table until they inevitably fell victim so some monster attack of one kind or another. Seriously, it was like watching a kids version of a classic Godzilla movie at times, I was having trouble breathing because of the laughter. He also enjoyed the flavour, but agreed that they didn't really go strong on the banana flavour at all.

Overall, I mostly liked them. Not being 'food allergy friendly' in any way, these will not suit anyone who does a Gluten Free, Dairy Free or Soy Free diet. However, if you don't have any issues with those, these could be a fun little treat for the kids. They aren't perfect, but they also aren't trying to be either. For the cost of 50c per serving, these are going to go well in the kids' lunchboxes, and as long as you are allergy-aware they should be great at parties too.

We all loved these little biscuits, from Miss Five right up to the tallest adult there! They are just the right size for a mouthful and the banana flavour is strong and very pleasant. We started off eating a few each to get the first impressions, but not one person had anything negative to say - adults and kids alike, we all liked them. My daughter thought the texture was similar to that of Girl Guide biscuits, so that was the clincher as we always buy a few packets of that particular biscuit when they are available.

Mr Seven thought they would be ideal for a party. He thought he might even like them for his own when he becomes Mr Eight at the end of the year. His father was interested in doing something creative with them rather than just offering them round, and said he thought it would be fun to sandwich them back-to back in pairs with some banana flavoured icing and then stand them up. We did not get the chance to try that out as the packet was fast disappearing, but it is something we will try at some stage as the children could do it themselves.

Mr Seven said it would be dangerous to find them in a supermarket because he could be forced to buy some just because they are so cute. Everyone found this extremely funny, but it is nice to see things from a kid's perspective as the product is undoubtedly aimed at younger people. Everyone with children in their lives has experienced that moment when the kids see something on the shelf and ask for it. We think it is the adults who make the purchasing choices, but we are all driven by the prime consumer who will eat it if it is pleasant and leave it in the cupboard if it is not flavour of the month! Advertisers know this so they direct their sales campaigns at the young consumer.

The adults present (daughter, son-in-law, and two cousins) all said they would buy it, not for themselves, but for the children - especially if they were planning a party or a playdate. They liked the flavour and crisp texture themselves, but would prefer a larger biscuit if they were buying for an older group. I don't think that is necessarily an issue: you can always stuff three or four in your mouth at a time if you are really hungry.

As far as I can see, the consensus was that this is a really nice product. Several of those present had also tried the chocolate variety in this range, but the banana was thought to be far superior in terms of authentic banana flavour and kid appeal. The package actually lists natural flavour as one of the ingredients so I can only assume that the natural flavour referred to is banana. Other than that, it is preservative free which helps to make it a reasonably healthy snack.

As a mother of two primary school aged children I am always on the outlook for lunchbox ideas. Since my girls both love the Minions I knew the mini cookies would appeal to them. I chose to get the banana flavoured ones as there aren't many banana flavoured cookies around. Another thing that appealed to me was that it wasn't individual packages as so many mini cookies are. This meant that it was able to control the portion size. It also meant my girls could take some in their lunchboxes as their school is an Enviro-School and encourages nude food.

My girls both enjoyed their Minion cookies. They also used it as an excuse to say banana a lot just like the Minions do. They noticed that the cookies came in a few different Minions characters so they got the different ones talking to each other. the cookies had a distinctive banana smell and flavour which didn't appeal to me but did to the girls. The cookies weren't too dry like many of the other types of mini cookies are which I found a nice change.

I told the girls that they also make a chocolate flavoured version of these and they are keen to try them too. Imagine the conversions the cookies will have with each other if they have both flavours.

Everybody is cashing in on the minions craze. The packaging itself has plenty of great picture of minions that will no doubt appeal to most children, and have them begging to eat the minion food. The "cookies" come inside a plastic packet, which itself sits inside a cardboard box. With 10 servings worth of cookies, I was a little disappointed to see there was no proper way to reseal the box or plastic pack after use. You would think that something that has 10 servings would be resealable, or have individual packages to keep the product fresh.

The cookies are cute. They have a similar size to that of "dunkaroos", a staple of my own childhood lunches, although these biscuits do seem a little bit more crumbly. The crumbly nature of the cookie does mean it gets stuck in your teeth quite a lot more than usual, but that is a difficult thing for a cookie to avoid.

The aroma of the biscuits is quite subtle, but the flavour is reasonably strong. Rather than tasting like artificial banana milkshake flavouring, it tastes like the dried banana chips you can get from the supermarket. Good flavour, but also a natural flavour. Feeling nostaligic and missing dunkaroos, I decided to eat these in the same way; simply dunking them in a chocolate dip. Pretty easy to do, when you have a jar of nutella at home, and it worked together well.

That is really what would have made this product that much better. Rather than just making a large box of minion shaped cookies, If they had packed them into seving sizes, with something to dip it in (chocolate, strawberry, or banana flavoured perhaps) then this would easily make a great kids school snack. They are still good, but on their own there is a lot less excitement to it.