Elka Daily: Croissant (strawberry marmelade)

Product name: Elka Daily: Croissant (strawberry marmelade)
Purchase details: £0.40 for a 50g croissant or four for £1.00 (Asda)
Calories: 186 per croissant
Country of origin: Albania 

To finish off my reviews of the Elka Daily: Croissant range, tonight I bring you the strawberry marmelade variety (yes, that’s right – they can’t spell ‘marmalade’!). Following my experiences with the mille-feuille cream and cocoa cream flavours, I pretty much knew what to expect from the croissant itself at this point, but I did expect this strawberry filling to the be the sweetest of the lot.

This Croissant came in a very girly wrapper which was bright pink swirled with baby blue – I liked it! Unlike the other flavours, there was no image of the filling on this packaging but, instead, actual strawberries. On checking the ingredients, I saw that the filling would make up 27% of the product and contained strawberry pulp.

On removing the Croissant from the wrapper, I was aware that the smell was the strongest yet. Whilst I’ve previously found that the pastry itself had a fruity-like aroma, this one was obviously properly fruity in scent.

As expected, the outward appearance was the same as the other varieties, and the filling appeared to have the same kind of consistency, although it did look slightly more rough. I did find that the marmelade was darker than I thought it would be and was more of an orangey-brown than a pinky-red. I was pleased to see there was plenty of it though!

The Croissant itself tasted and felt exactly the same as previously whilst the filling was very sweet. Even though it was called a marmelade, I had been expecting the filling to taste like a jam, but there actually was a marmalade-like tang to the flavour. I enjoyed this taste but it wasn’t as fruity as I thought it would be. The moisture it provided, though, was fantastic and so the overall experience reminded me a bit of a Danish pastry.

This was the variety of Elka Daily: Croissant that I was least looking forward to trying but it turned out to be really nice and a winning combination. If only it were a bit fruitier... 

Appearance: 6.5/10
Aroma: 6.5/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 7.5/10
Overall score: 6.88/10

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

Elka Daily: Croissant (mille-feuille cream)

Product name: Elka Daily: Croissant (mille-feuille cream)
Purchase details: £0.40 for a 50g croissant or four for £1.00 (Asda)
Calories: 224 per croissant
Country of origin: Albania 

I love Christmas and Easter day mornings as they’re the two times of the year that I get to eat croissants for breakfast. I’m quite fussy about how I eat croissants – I like them to be microwaved rather than oven-baked so that they’re soft rather than crispy and then become soggy when the butter is added. For this reason, I never usually buy croissants from cafés and I’m not a big fan of them at hotel breakfasts since I just find them too dry in comparison, particularly when they’re not dripping with butter.

You may be wondering, then, what on Earth possessed me to buy the three Elka Daily: Croissant varieties that are currently on offer in Asda. Quite simply, it was the price! At what worked out to be £0.25 per croissant, I was curious to see what the different flavoured fillings tasted like, so I decided to take a risk. Today’s review is for the mille-feuille variety, but reviews for the other two versions will follow in due course.

My expectations for this croissant were very low. The image on the wrapper made the baked good look dry, and that was before I’d even opened it. I have to admit that I didn’t even know what ‘mille-feuille’ was when I bought this, but the pot of cream shown next to the croissant looked delicious, and the pale colours used on the wrapper also suggested a creaminess so I hoped that this was what I was getting and not some bizarre flavour! Let me tell you, I was made up when I got home and Googled the word, only to discover that ‘mille-feuille’ is another name for vanilla and custard slices. I may be badly educated, but boy, do I love those pastries!

On opening the lightweight croissant, I was pleased that it really was as large as it had felt and, therefore, felt like a substantial snack. What I did find, though, was it had an excessively sweet pastry smell that I associate with European bakery items since it is an aroma I experienced a lot in Italy. I’ve never come across this smell in UK-baked products since I think we tend to produce more buttery products. As a result, I can’t quite describe what this pastry smelt like – it was almost a fruity or citrusy smell, yet it wasn’t quite either of them. Odd!

The croissant itself looked completely standard and, I guess, not very exciting. I was pleased that it didn’t look or feel quite as dry as the wrapper’s image had indicated, but I was still a bit nervous about trying it in its cold, non-soggy form. I was also a bit disappointed when I looked inside and saw that the cream looked more like a sticky paste and seemed very central so I wasn’t expecting much moisture from this either. This filling was very pale in colour but it was there – honest!

I tried some of the pastry on its own, first, by peeling off a couple layers and, again, it thankfully wasn’t as dry as I’d feared. That’s not to say it was how I’d normally choose to eat a croissant, but that’s my problem rather than the product’s! It had a nice texture too and when I moved on to eating a mouthful of all the layers (but an end with no filling), it seemed like a very sweet bread which gradually became more pastry-like in flavour. It did have the sweet European taste that matched the aroma, but its aftertaste was more in line with the croissants available in UK supermarkets.

As for the filling, I was very pleasantly surprised. It turned out to be far more widespread than it had first appeared and it was also really smooth and creamy – just like a custard slice should be. Its thickness really improved the overall texture of the product and it had a sweet, custardy flavour. I did find the flavour wasn’t quite as sugary as the cream layer used on my favourite pastry slices, but this was definitely a good thing since the surrounding croissant was so sweet.

You’ve probably gathered, then, that this croissant far exceeded my low expectations – I really was surprised at just how nice it was. That’s not to say it was amazing, but it was well worth the offer price! 

Appearance: 6/10
Aroma: 6/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 6.5/10