NEW! Dessert Menu Banoffee Semifreddos (M&S)

Banoffee pie is absolutely up there as one of my all time favourite desserts (with tiramisu and my mum-in-law-to-be's apple crumble). The trouble is, most of the supermarket versions are pretty poor, and most of them come in large sized pies (I can't deal with that amount of temptation in the house, the same reason I don't make it very often). Cue M&S. Thank the lord. Their frozen dessert collection now contains a double pack of banoffee semifreddos. But there's a catch -they're £4 a time, yes, ouch. I struggle with spending £3 on a couple of cheesecake slices, but then I reconsidered...

1)  I'd heard resoundingly positive feedback on the semifreddos from fellow dessert fanatics Nat and Sian.
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2) I'd pay more than that for a single dessert at a restaurant.

But then I had a brainwave anyway. The dine in for £10 meal deal. That says it includes selected ice creams. It usually contains some of M&S' dessert collection free desserts. I wonder... would the banoffee semifreddos be secretly part of the fortnightly deal? There was no offer ticket to suggest it was, but I did used to work at the Hereford branch and so I cheekily asked the lovely Maria to check it through the till...

BINGO!

It worked. I managed to buy two rump steaks, 4 potato rostis, a bottle of wine and the semifreddos for just a tenner. Bargain.

"Banana and vanilla custard cream with Dulce De Leche caramel sauce on a digestive biscuit crumb base, finished with cocoa powder and a dark chocolate plaque."

Chuffed with myself, I got them home and opened them up, to find that M&S had done a rather marvellous job of packaging them carefully in separate little brown boxes. First brownie point awarded to Marks, they were impeccable, despite my persistent clumsiness; anyone remember this doughnut pancake?

The topping was well flavoured with an authentic flavour (M&S have used real bananas - 6% of the ingredients) and it was creamy whilst remaining fairly light. I couldn't get my head around the consistency though; after the 20 minutes suggested defrosting time I had a soft moussey outer edge and a frozen inside. I get that's what its meant to be, but it made me think that I hadn't left it out of the freezer for long enough. 

The biscuit bottom was a lovely digestive affair, and although it was on the crumbly, fall-apart end of the cheesecake base spectrum, it was delicious nonetheless. 

It was the caramel centre that I was most excited about, and as I started to dig in, I thought M&S had been fairly stingy. In reality, it simply turned out that it was mostly pooled down one end, and the golden treasure was worth the wait. It was thick, gooey, and sweet with the buttery richness that I had hoped for. 

M&S Banoffee Semifreddos will never beat a fresh, homemade banoffee pie -especially as they understandably* lack the slices of fresh banana. At £4 for two, they're expensive too, but are well worth picking up as part of the Dine in Offer. As such, I'd happily have them again. 

8/10

*no-one wants slimy, black defrosted bananas gracing their dessert after all!