NEW! Twix Cheesecake (Iceland)

Does the idea of a Twix cheesecake excite you as much as it did me? Seriously now, can you think of anything yummier? 

I just didn't expect it to originate from Iceland (the store not the country), and I felt myself wishing that M&S or Waitrose had thought of it first -not that they would pay for the branding I'm sure. Whilst I am certainly no food snob, I somehow baulked at the idea of spending £3 on a frozen cheesecake from the discount retailer when it first made its way into stores a few weeks ago. To make matters worse, I then read a-review-a-day's dispassionate review and decided to give it a miss for a while. Like a sign from the gods it came on offer last week, and I gave myself a good kick up the bum -£2 for 8 servings of cheesecake is surely a veritable bargain! 

"Creamy cheesecake & caramel, topped with chocolate sauce and chocolate covered biscuits"

I realised when I picked it up that in fact the cheesecake was made by frozen dessert specialists Coppenrath & Wiese, which reassured me as their treats are normally pretty good. I also came to the conclusion that one eighth of a 450g dessert would equate to a spoonful sized portion -I'm not sure why they even suggest such ridiculousness!

I cut into the cheesecake whilst still frozen so that the two of us could save the rest for another day. It  turned out to be a pretty hard and messy job, during which my other half received an earful for watching over me do it and telling me not to cut my fingers off -thanks for that dear.

The bumpy chocolate top was chock-full of biscuity balls, and I was happy to find that it was adequately thick and not just a paltry smattering on top. In the middle sat the cheesecake -complete with plenty of visible caramel sauce pockets- and right at the bottom was (of course) the biscuit base. Annoyingly, said bottom was on the loose side, which meant that was too crumbly to plate up neatly.

Yum yum yum. The chocolate was silky, and although certainly not up to Gu ganache standards, was deliciously comforting. There's nothing worse than a soggy biscuit (no giggling lads!), and fortunately Coppenrath & Wiese have managed to keep their balls intact (!) thereby offering a satisfying crunch and injection of Twix-ness. The cheesecake in the middle was exactly what I expected from the frozen variety -slightly stodgier than fresh but still creamy and rich. I welcomed the ample pockets of caramel sauce which were also tasty and added an extra element of both flavour and texture into the dessert. The only real problem came from that pesky base; which refused to stay together and meant I was left with what looked like a beach scene in my bowl -yes I ended up licking the crumbs, don't judge me! 

This frozen Twix cheesecake will never beat a fresh version -or of course homemade- but Coppenrath & Weise have nevertheless made a pretty decent attempt at translating one of my favourite chocolate bars into a dessert. I'm left wondering what the new Mars Dessert Bar and Maltesers Pavlova taste like... 
9/10