NEW! Cadbury Winterful Layers Of Joy (Tesco)

Cadbury releasing their new limited edition Layers Of Joy is always a dicey time. Their previous attempts have been a right mixed bag between delicious and grim. Fortunately their last product in the line -the Jaffantastic pots- were at the top end of the 'Joy' scale, but that does mean that they'll be sorely missed if the new winter edition isn't up there with them.

I'm pleased to see that Kev (from Kev's Snack Reviews) has recently stepped up his 'spotted in shops' posts again, so it's to him I owe the knowledge that Cadbury have launched the Winterful pots -thanks Kev! I found them at Tesco for a round pound, but have since spotted them in Waitrose priced at £1.20.

"One winterful gingerbread biscuit dipped in Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate sauce and delicious white chocolate mousse."

I always find that Cadbury are on the sneaky side and slightly under fill their pots; still at least it meant that the white chocolate mousse had retained it's attractive peaks. Admittedly I haven't had the best experience with Cadbury's white chocolate mousse in the past, but I tried to keep my mind unbiased before digging in to the Winterful dessert.

Sigh. They haven't changed it since last year. The mousse was fluffy, but had the same bland flavour and lacked the richness that Milkybar Mousses achieve. It might be due to Cadbury using white chocolate powder (5%) to give it it's flavour. Come on now Cadbury -this isn't marketed as a diet product so surely you can do better than that?

Underneath the mousse layer was the chocolate sauce, which I normally quite like, except this time some rogue ginger had fused with it and messed with the flavour. If you've been reading this blog since the start you'll appreciate that I love a good chocolate and ginger combination -heck I more-or-less lived on Lebkuchen last December- but this just didn't work. Maybe it's because the chocolate was too mild, or too sweet, but the resulting flavour reminded me of washing up powder. Not good. 

I kept everything crossed that the gingerbread would go some way to redeem the situation. It kind of did too -that's to say that it had a bold, fiery flavour- but -and here's the killer- it was soggy, and made me think of the ensuing disaster when dropping a dunked ginger biscuit into your cuppa. Fail.

Last up was yet another layer of insipid white chocolate mousse,which was at this point, totally overwhelmed by the ginger aftertaste of the soggy biscuit. Gah, at least the disappointment ended at the bottom of the pot, right?

Maybe my grumbles are based on high expectations from the 'Layers Of Joy' range, so I'd welcome any comments with reference to how you found them. Or just leave me a note to say hello, that's always nice.

5/10

*or Muller -who Cadbury told me last year make their desserts!