Bonne Maman Crème Brûlée Au Chocolat (Waitrose)

How can you improve any dessert? Add chocolate of course. Or salted caramel. Or both! That's my viewpoint anyway, so when I spotted Bonne Maman's Crème Brûlée Au Chocolat on offer in Waitrose (£1.52 for two) I was suitably tempted.

Both the chocolate and standard crème brûlée come in Gü dessert style glass ramekins. Please tell me you're kitchen is full of the little glass pots too? I'm sure the saying should be "a moment on the lips, a lifetime in your cupboards", but it doesn't have quite the same ring to it does it? Each dessert is topped with a sachet of brown sugar to complete the 'brûlée' experience..

..Except, I was baffled by the rather ambiguous serving suggestion on the back of the packet:

"Sprinkle the contents of the attached sachet evenly over the surface of the Crème Brûlée. Place the pot in the oven until golden and bubbling. Allow to cool slightly before eating. Alternatively, serve cold."

A cold oven? Obviously not. A temperature? Time? Jeez. These are worse than IKEA instructions! Having partaken in some chef training a number of years ago I realised that the sugar needed a quick blast from a blowtorch. I left my kitchen to ask my (Engineer) other half for said implement but he sniggered and apologised for leaving it at work. Thinking on my feet, I whacked my grill onto full blast and popped the sugar-topped crème brûlées under the heat, hoping for the best.

The sugar didn't really caramelise, but I got a few crispy bits. Underneath the sugary top I was met with a tepid, gelatinous, brown substance. It wasn't  pleasant, and made me think of Granny's rejected blancmange.. I was hoping for a punchy cocoa taste, but instead it was horribly mild and insipid. The colder custard at the bottom of the ramekin was marginally better, but far from tasty. I'm showing my age here but did you ever have school lunch luke-warm chocolate custard?  That's the closest flavour I could liken it to.  Gloopy, warm, and jelly like. Not one for me.

Being nosy I had a quick gander at the ratings on Ocado's and Waitrose's website. They're not good. Bonne Maman's chocolate crème brûlée has a 3 stars on Waitrose, and only 1.4 stars on Ocado. Interestingly, the reviews are good for the original version, so maybe this is one dessert that doesn't benefit from the addition of chocolate...

2/10

Have you had either of the Bonne Maman crème brûlées? What do you think of them?