NEW! Melting Chocolate Domes (M&S)

I've had my insatiable and greedy chocoholic eyes on the Melting Chocolate Domes since Nat (of a lot-o-choc blog) told me about Marks & Spencer's new dessert collection line up at the beginning of September. Despite my temptations I stupidly picked up their new muffins instead (you can reviews of their banana choc chip here, and rhubarb, strawberry & custard here). Before I knew it, the Domes were removed from their introductory offer price, and I just couldn't being myself to fork out the full whack for them (approx £4!) even after viewing Nat's spectacular food porn video of their preparation on Instagram.

This week the trains to and from uni have been useless -abandoned trains, cancelled trains, last minute platform changes, extremely delayed trains, you name it. However, the disruption has had one perk -a lengthy delay last night meant that I had a spare few minutes last night to pop into Marks & Sparks at reducing time, yippee! I didn't have much room in my rucksack, and realised that any treasures would have to suffer a 50 minute train followed by a 2 mile cycle ride in the rain, but when I saw the Domes reduced to £1.40 I just had to have them! 

"Chocolate brownie on top of a feuilletine biscuit layer, filled with milk chocolate ganache and topped with a milk chocolate dome. Served with a milk chocolate pouring sauce." 

These hot melting dome style domes have become quite popular in higher quality restaurants (so Instagram leads me to believe anyway)! Of course trusty Marks & Sparks have harnessed the opportunity to turn it into a commercially available dessert, and who am I to complain, it both looked and sounded fantastic.

Despite my trek home, the desserts were still in tip-top shape by the time I got home. The instructions informed me to bring a pan of water to the boil before turning down the heat to a simmer. Then it told me to place the chocolate sachet in the water and simmer for 5 minutes. What's wrong with making the sauce microwaveable M&S? Despite my grumbles about the faff (and enforced extra wait) I wasn't about to mess up what could potentially be the most perfect dessert, so I obliged and followed the guidelines. 

Now I have to admit that I felt like a bit of a failure when I didn't make my domes collapse in the way that Nat had managed to. Mine took a bit of prodding before they begrudgingly caved. Still, they looked beautiful and I immediately got stuck in. 

The first part I tasted was the brownie, which was rich and chocolatey, but a little on the dry side. I imagine that M&S might have made it that way so that it held the domes properly, but it didn't taste like a fresh homemade version. The second component that reached my mouth was the feuilletine base, which offered up a beautifully crispy texture. and crackled away pleasingly. In the centre was the ganache, which was cool, creamy and slightly lighter than expected -a bonus given how heavy the dessert was. Of course the domes had mostly melted, but the remaining chocolate was of good quality (although I expected nothing less from the premium supermarket). The chocolate sauce that had pooled around the dessert was delicious, but very runny, which complemented the brownie and injected the required moisture. 

I really enjoyed M&S' Melting Chocolate Domes, but I do warn you that they are extremely rich and chocolatey so therefore advisable only for serious chocoholics! My only real issue was with the temperature of the dessert -I tend to like mine either piping hot or freezing cold and of course the hot sauce on top of cold domes resulted in an lukewarm effect. For this reason alone I'm afraid I can't give the Domes the top marks that I awarded M&S's Billionaire Bullion Bar, but I still recommend that you pick yourself up some when you're in need of a chocolatey treat. 

9/10