NEW! Waitrose 1 Chocolate & Salted Caramel Mousses

My sister was coming to stay yesterday evening and I was about to head to M&S to pick up a Dine in for £10 meal deal when I thought I'd check their 'menu' online. Oh. The desserts looked pretty lacking. I mean, the Millionaire's desserts are well worth a try if you haven't had them before, but I really fancied something different. I chanced a look at Waitrose's website and found that this weekend the upmarket supermarket is also offering a similar deal. For £10 you can have a main, side, bottle of wine (or box of chocolates) as well as a choice between many starters or desserts. This makes it a good option if you've got less of a sweet tooth, but let's be honest -for me- it's always going to be dessert.

As part of the offer, Waitrose have included their two wavy shaped mousses that form part of the '1' range. I've been eyeing these mousses up for a while, but there was no way in hell I was prepared to pay £3.99 for the privilege of trying them. I mean, they looked good, but they're hardly groundbreaking, are they? Just for info, and incase you're not as pudding obsessed as I am, the other flavour available is limoncello and raspberry. I was temporarily tempted by the lemony flavour, but when the choice was between lemon and chocolate? A no-brainer I'm afraid.

"Belgian chocolate mousse with a salted caramel centre, chocolate sponge base and topped with a chocolate sauce."

What the...? How the badger are you meant to retrieve these things from their plastic casing? If any has any better ideas than the only solution I came up with, please drop me a comment. I ended up using a combination of a knife under the cake bottom, and my fingers to wiggle the mousses out -of course leaving an inelegant finger print on both sides. Oops. I hoped my sister wouldn't spot the grooves of my digits on the side of her dessert, and instead would focus on the pretty glittery topping. 

"Ooh, they're gold..." she cooed. Phew.

The chocolate mousse was rich and light. Less so than the likes of an aero mousse, but that's unsurprising considering that whipping cream and dark chocolate (20%) are the top two ingredients. The resulting flavour is a chocoholic's dream, tasting of ganache but without the resulting heaviness. 

Disappointment hit however when I found the puddle of caramel in the centre. I was hoping for a generous, oozing trove of salty-sweet treasure, but instead I found a jot of thin, toffee sauce. Hmm. Another 'salted' caramel that really didn't live up to expectations. As for the chocolate sponge base, I can only imagine that it was created as a base to move the desserts with, for it was wafer thin and therefore added very little -if anything at all- to the dessert. 

As far as chocolate mousses go, this one is rather good. Is it worthy of a £3.99 price tag? Absolutely not. Is it worth buying with the ranch steak, pommel frites and bottle of Italian red for £10? You betcha. 

8/10