Elka Daily: Croissant (cocoa cream)

Product name: Elka Daily: Croissant (cocoa cream)
Purchase details: £0.40 for a 50g croissant or four for £1.00 (Asda)
Calories: 213 per croissant
Country of origin: Albania

Having been pleasantly surprised by the mille-feuille version of the Elka Daily: Croissant range, I was quite looking forward to this cocoa cream variety. This was the one flavour that I’d purchased two of so I decided to try one cold and take the risk of microwaving the other one to try and achieve the soggy texture I enjoy so much.

This croissant was presented in the same type of wrapper as the mille-feuille variety with a nice colour scheme to reflect the chocolatey flavour. I do know, though, that people like my sister would think that the little pot of chocolate, next to the image of the croissant, looked dodgy!

I won’t go into too much detail in this review since everything about the croissant itself was exactly the same in appearance, texture and taste in its cold form. The chocolate filling, though, was visually more obvious due its dark colour, and it still looked like a paste. The cocoa cream was very sweet and, whilst soft and smooth, a little bit too glossy in a way that almost made it jelly-like. The combination of the croissant and the filling was exactly how I remember the taste of Italian pastries and, whilst I wouldn’t go so far as to say the cream tasted like cocoa, it was still pleasant, although artificial.

The product’s wrapper didn’t state anywhere that these croissants could be heated (although it didn’t tell you not to try!) so I decided to stick one in the microwave for 15 seconds. Here’s a word of warning: do not try and tear the croissant apart after doing this since the result was sauce shooting out of the end of the pastry – oops! This is why the plate on my photograph looks so messy – the cream became very liquidy and just like the chocolate sauce that’s used on ice cream. The important question, though, is whether microwaving the croissant achieved the desired result of sogginess? It did make it softer but it certainly didn’t become soggy in the same way a standard croissant does. It did improve the flavour, though, as it brought out the butteriness of the pastry, although it did maintain its sweet tang.

This, again, was £0.25 well-spent and, although I preferred the taste of the croissant hot, I would stick to the cold version in future simply because it was so much neater to eat! 

Appearance: 7/10
Aroma: 6/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 6.75/10