Thorntons Gooey Caramel Trifle

First there was diabetes and then there was this.

Buy a bag of sugar from the supermarket (if you can find one after spending three days queuing up to get in – try searching in the dusty corners by the Fair trade stuff) and gnash at it crazily for ten minutes.

That's what Thorntons’ chocolate caramel trifle is like. With some sprinkled particles of a Flake equivalent on top.

Gooey is unquestionably a good word to describe the trifle, but messy is an even better one. In actuality, the mixture was a cataclysm of splattered cream and gushing caramel ooze.

Usually with desserts of this kind there is some sort of ridiculous suggestion that the contents of the small bowl could easily serve ten thousand people, but I didn’t notice anything so absurd on the Thorntons’ offering. This was just as well considering that scooping out the contents was like trying to serve up a particularly watery jelly, with sticky caramel gushing all over the place. Jellyfish are more cooperative.

Because of the undignified way it was served (the fault for which naturally lies with the manufacturer, not the server) it produced a nasty looking splodge – the flaky bits only adding to the monstrosity of chaos. Unlikely to score very well on a portentous cooking show.

The format of the trifle started with a spongy chocolate base covered with pouring caramel, which itself was topped with chocolate cream, normal white cream (whatever the technical term is for that) and chocolate flaky bits.

The particles of solidified chocolate added a slight crunchiness to the otherwise liquefied concoction, but were of no particular relevance. This, really, was the case for most of the trifle: the creams and sponge provided minimal taste and all flailed helplessly against the might of the caramel – which was so sugary that it easily wiped out most of what was left of my pancreas.

Cheap is the word that springs to mind when ultimately describing this trifle; Thorntons could have used a magnitude of ingredients, but settled for the ones that would give them the biggest profits – and the nastiest tastes.

Final review rating: trouble and trifle: 2* out of 5.

Review by JAMES LEWIS Wanderer, wonderer and writer of the Chocolate Dissection blog (which will ideally melt hearts rather than brains). Reliable with sarcasm, less so with a scalpel. Twitter: @IdeasJimbound

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