Intro

I was recently invited to do a product test via a survey site and quite happily accepted when I discovered it was for the new Walls Magnum Chilled Desserts.

These brand new decadent desserts come in 4 flavours - Raspberry Tease, Chocolate Desire, Strawberry Secret and Caramel Encounter.

I opted for the Raspberry Tease.

Packaging

Found in the chilled section of Tesco’s, the reddy brown box looks very luxurious and classy. Its approx. 6" x 3" with a tiny swirl for a see through window. This might as well be non existent as you cannot see the product through this!
One thing I did like was that each end of the box had been sealed with small transparent sticky tabs so you know that no one has opened the box trying to have a look inside. Plus point for Walls on this from me.
You cannot freeze these desserts and they have a very short shelf life of a couple of days.

Allergy and Nutritional Info

Unfortunately, as with many products these contain milk, egg, wheat, and soya so if you are an allergy sufferer please check the box. It states its suitable for vegetarians but anyone with a nut allergy will be left wondering as it states "may contain traces of nuts". The ingredients or notes give no indication as to why.
Each dessert, there are two in each box, contains 309 calories and 19g of fat. Definitely a ‘spoil yourself’ dessert!

What Walls Say

"Two white chocolate desserts with a fruity raspberry sauce centre on a chocolate brownie base covered in milk chocolate"

Needless to say I was drooling and ready to break open the box!

Appearance

On sliding out the plastic tray that these are housed in, I was greeted by what I can only describe as 2 of those marshmallow teacakes but a lot bigger! Each dessert is approx. 2.5" in diameter and approx. 1.5" deep, so a reasonable size. The milk chocolate coating looked the same as any other.


The Taste Experience

As I slowly lowered my spoon to the dessert the chocolate gave a loud crunch and some of it shattered into large pieces (much like a teacake again!) having split the dessert in half I was pleasantly surprised to see that it looked exactly the same as the picture on the box. I decided to try each ‘section’ on its own and then as an overall taste.

The Milk Chocolate covering gave a good crunch in my mouth. A standard smooth milk chocolate taste, not too creamy and it didn’t stick to the inside of mouth, probably due to it being a thin layer which was quite pleasant. No more rich or creamy than your standard Dairy Milk. So, nothing exceptional there then.

The White Chocolate filling I expected, maybe stupidly, to be that of white chocolate as stated on the box, possibly even mousse like in look and texture or at the very least a Milky Bar type taste. What I got was something completely different. It was more of a dense, wobbly, jelly-like appearance and creamy coloured. Maybe it would taste better!
Placing a spoonful in my mouth and ewwwwww! It had an extremely creamy taste which was also quite sour. I could taste a hint of something akin to cream cheese and as I do not like ANY cream cheeses it was certainly noticeable to me. The very smooth texture contained no sweetness at all. After managing to swallow this I checked the ingredients list to find the ‘culprits’ - soft cheese and soured cream. It then dawned on me that this white filling tastes just like the ‘wobbly’ layer in a cheesecake, not white chocolate at all! It also left a rather sour aftertaste which was not pleasant.

I decided it was time to move on to the Chocolate Brownie Base in the hope it would taste nicer. This was nice and light and quite moist. It broke up nicely in my mouth but there was only a hint of the chocolate taste. It was more like a sliver of lightly flavoured chocolate cake as the usual syrupy sweetness of most brownies was no where to be found! With the initial taste being very faint, there was no aftertaste at all but I was not left with bits stuck to the sides of my mouth. Overall it was quite non descript.

So, onto the Fruity Raspberry Sauce and for the first time I could say yummy! This sits in the middle and is a fair sized portion. It reminded me of Muller Fruit Corners for the thickness of the consistency. It was a very smooth sauce but had a lovely sharp tang to it, I guess this is to offset the sourness of the main filling. The tang was very refreshing in the mouth and with the aftertaste being the same it was very nice. I noticed there were no actual fruit pieces but it did state ‘sauce’. What it did contain though was lots of little raspberry pips so if you like a completely smooth texture this is not for you. A few pips got stuck in my teeth as well.

Overall, eating it all together was an experience!. The softness of the brownie against the smooth, definite crunch of the milk chocolate made a nice contrast. The sourness of the cheesecake like filling was offset by the kick of the sauce. For me, the predominant aftertaste was that of the soft cheese.
However, as I do not like cheesecake AT ALL, I could not stomach the sickly soft cheese and sour taste of the ‘white chocolate’


My Opinion

Well, as you’ve probably gathered these are not for me! If you like cheesecake, you’ll probably love them, if not be very cautious of trying them. At £2.49 a box I think they are quite expensive and am so glad I did not have to pay for them.

I was very disappointed with the ‘white chocolate’ description as if I had seen any reference to the cheesecake type look and taste I would not have tried them and think they should be marketed along these lines, especially as this makes up nearly 60% of the total dessert. I must state that, having not tried any other flavour, I don’t know if those taste the same.

Whilst the packaging makes these look very decadent and up market, in my opinion I can not say that the overall taste is any better or heavenly than other dessert. So at the end of the day, they get 2 out of 5 from me.

You’ll either love them or hate them!


Other Information

Made by Magnum Desserts,
Unilever UK
Freepost ADM3939
London, SW1A 1YS

Tel 0800 678 1031

www.mymagnum.co.uk

The website is a new one and shows the full range of desserts.

Many thanks for reading as ever. x x

© HotBabes 2006