NEW! Chocolate & Hazelnut Müller Rice (Morrisons)

When's the last time you had a Müller Rice? It's only just dawned on me that I haven't bought one in months. Once upon a time I'd have them a few times a week for dessert, but since my ice cream addiction got out of hand I rarely buy them - although admittedly I'd got a bit bored with the flavours too. Every few months Müller bring out a new limited edition but more recently the company have got a little lazy and have just reinstated previously retired flavours (such as the banana & toffee, chocolate, maple syrup and salted caramel).

At long last they've come up with a new concoction though: chocolate and hazelnut. Short of releasing a peanut butter/peanut butter & chocolate variant*, a Nutelle-esque rice pud is about as up my street as it gets! The new flavour didn't come without concerns though -so far Müller's chocolatey pots have been pretty pants in my book. I haven't got along with the insipid sickliness of the sauce at the bottom, and even gave every single one of the chocolate & caramel flavour pots in the Going The a Distance multipack to Bert.

"Creamy dairy rice with smooth chocolate & hazelnut sauce (15%)."

I spotted the new Chocolate & Hazelnut Müller Rice at Morrisons and ummed and ahhed for a moment on wasting the money on a pot, then got a grip and reminded myself that it was just 69p (although they're now 50p in Sainsbury's) and bought one.

As always, I stuck my pud in the freezer for 45 mins before retrieving it. The sauce had behaved itself and had remained at the bottom, but I could still smell the sweet hazelnut scent emanating through the creamy rice topping.

We'll blow me down; the flavour was rather good! It was still a thin 'ice cream topping' style sauce, but the taste of hazelnut was at the forefront and complimented the chocolate. Perhaps it would have been better with a denser texture -akin to the consistency of the caramel core in Ben & Jerry's Karamel Sutra for example- but it was still much better than expected.

I then decided to take my chances and microwaved the second half. Now I always normally prefer my rice puddings ice cold, and so the second surprise came when i found that I loved this flavour warm too. In fact it was easier to imagine I was eating melted Nutella that way, and the chocolate mixed into the rice easily.

For a low fat (but high sugar!) dessert it tasted very indulgent, and this flavour is certainly one I'd buy again. Bravo Müller!

9/10

*can you imagine? Yes please!