Yesterday afternoon I took a trip to Marks & Spencers to get something nice for Saturday night dinner. I tend to only shop in Marks & Spencers for weekend treats as it is a little bit outside of my budget for my day to day shopping. Although, as much as I wish I could afford to shop in Marks everyday, it does make the weekend all the more of a treat when I have something particularly nice.
For dinner on Saturday I had rump steak which came with a portion of peppercream sauce and chips. I cooked my steak rare.
Dessert!
Starting from the bottom:
Shortbread biscuit layer - crunchy & sugary
Caramel - smooth, creamy & flavourful
Cream - balances the caramel & chocolate
Chocolate - not too dark, not too light: a good strong chocolate hit.
So I was going to just get Millionaire's for dessert when I noticed they had a variation on the theme and had a (new?) dessert called Billionaire's dessert! What sold it for me was the salted caramel. I adore sweet and salty flavours (case in point - Reeces peanut butte cups!)
Below are my photo's of the dessert and what I thought of it.
:-(
Jeez Louise they are not great photos. I must remember NOT to use my ipad cover as a little photo booth ever again. I am embarrassed how bad they are compared to the pic above from the M&S website.
Starting from the bottom:
Chocolate crumb: this for me was the weak link of the dessert. I like the crunch of SUGAR that is in the shortbread biscuit base on Millionaires. This was the right texture but in my opinion needed a slight bit of sweetness.
Salted Caramel: yes Yes YES!!!! All it promised to be . Sweet and salty, rich and caramely.
Okay so now this is where it gets confusing and I had difficulty (in a good way) separating flavours.
It is advertised as containing the following other layers: burnt caramel, black treacle mousse and chocolate ganache.
I definitely could TASTE these flavours. I just can't tell you which of the above is which! But that doesn't really matter. The taste is what counts.
So as to the taste:
The burnt caramel - this was an intense caramel flavour; it had an intensity a bit like the intense flavour of a charred well done steak. It worked!
Black treacle mousse: when combined with all the caramel and the chocolate it added a divine intensity to this dessert.
And finally what Marks call "the bling" on top of the dessert. I like the way my flash caught the light and has made it even blingier!!!! :-)
All in all this dessert for me was a massive success. I never thought Millionaire's could be beaten but as is the case a Billion really is a lot more than a Million!
