NEW! Red Velvet Filled Muffins (Tesco)

I doubt you're as sad as me. I've been patiently waiting for November to begin and for Tesco to release their Christmas lines. For the past two years the supermarket has sold Mince Pie Cookies and white snowman cookies, but this year they've gone down a decidedly less traditional route with the three new additions in their fresh bakery: Black Forest Cookies, Salted Caramel Filled Muffins and Red Velvet Filled Muffins. Now I'd wonder what on earth red velvet has to do with Christmas (and it's only the red hollies on the packaging that give the theme away) but I really can't talk as I often make a red velvet -gluten free- yule log for the big day. Plus, it's red velvet, I'm always game for red velvet.

At £1 for 4 sizeable muffins, the price can't be complained about either. I couldn't actually find them on Friday in my home town when I found the Merry Mince Pie Flapjacks, but did find them in another store yesterday-so keep looking if you don't have any joy at first.

"4 Red sponge chocolate muffins with cream cheese flavoured filling."

Their sugar dusting did little to conceal the poor flat tops (something I couldn't compute as the packaging didn't appear squashed) although I have to congratulate Tesco on the redness of the cake. The colour doesn't really show up very much in the photos, but I can promise you they had a red hue, and I appreciate how much more difficult the colour is to achieve now that it's so much harder to get hold of the super-artificial red food dyes. I noticed both the softness and the substantial weight of the muffin as soon as I picked one out of the pack; it was easy to slice in two, with a very close crumb and a fair amount of cream cheese filling. So far so good. 

The trouble was, red velvet can be so hit and miss. Sometimes it's bone dry, other times it's flavourless -and unfortunately these muffins fell into the latter camp. Had I blind taste-tasted the cake I'm sure I would've told you I was eating a dense Victoria Sponge. I mean, it tasted good, but it just wasn't red velvet and certainly lacked the chocolatey kick that I hoped for. 

The filling in the middle was super sweet and tasted almost like buttercream. The lack of characteristic tartness was evident, although unsurprising considering it actually doesn't contain any cream cheese (only cheese powder)! Say what?

I'm gutted, These are perfectly tasty little (albeit very sweet) muffins, but they miss the mark on two crucial factors:
1) For a festive muffin they're not very Christmassy
2) They're not red velvet!

Here's hoping the salted caramel fairs better...

6/10