Fast food

FTB’S FAST FOOD

If you have a sweet tooth, sometimes the dessert at the end of the meal is the part you look forward to the most. But as any dessert expert will tell you, the wide selection of sweet treats in the shops can make it very difficult to choose that perfect ending to your meal. FTB has tried and tested some of the top desserts on offer from the UK’s leading supermarkets to make your life a little easier and to satisfy those sugar cravings

DELIGHTFUL DESSERTS

TEST WINNER

CO-OP WAITROSE TESCO MARKS & SPENCER

Chocolate orange Bro’dough, £1.25; Irresistible millionaires roulade, £4.50; Irresistible dark chocolate & sour cherry brownies, £3.00; Irresistible raspberry & passion fruit cheesecake, £3.25

The Co-Op offer an excellent selection of desserts, especially from its Irresistible range, which includes some high-quality treats t for any dinner table. The chocolate orange Bro’dough is an orange- avoured brownie, shaped like a doughnut, covered with milk chocolate and nished with edible gold decorations. They re are deliciously moreish. The roulade offers lots of lovely textures with an excellent blend of creaminess and sweetness that will have you coming back for a second slice. The rich dark chocolate of the brownies is a real stand out, especially when mixed with the sour cherry, plus the gold lustre makes them look great. The bright colours of the cheesecake really pop from your plate while also having a lovely hint of vanilla coming through it. Overall a quality selection of desserts. ★★★★★

No.1 tarte aux fruits, £ 5; No.1 pear, ginger & blond white chocolate cake, £6.5 0; Passion fruit & mango tart, £4.50; Queen of tri es, £15

Waitrose desserts are a little more on the expensive side, but you most de nitely get what you pay for here. The tarte aux fruits has a perfect pastry and is topped with a selection of fruit that looks and tastes really fresh, and the layout on top makes this dessert quite a spectacle, de nitely nice enough to serve for guests. The ginger white chocolate cake is a must if you are really fond of ginger as the taste is quite strong, and the juicy pear hidden within it bursts in your mouth with avour as you bite into it. The passionfruit and mango tart is very good, with an excellent balance of tangy and sweet avours throughout, and again a nice pastry on the bottom. The Queen of tri es is just that and will easily serve 10 of your guests. Layers of silky vanilla custard mousse, fruity raspberry jelly and light sponge are topped with a pistachio crumb and could lead to a round of applause to nish off your meal. Long live the Queen! ★★★★★

nest* triple caramel orange torte, £5; nest* triple Belgian chocolate celebration cheesecake, £4; nest* 4 all butter pastry speculoos tarts, £2.50; Jaffa cake, £2

Tesco’s range of desserts is great value but just lacks the overall quality of some of the other desserts tested. The caramel orange torte has a unique design and the spiced digestive biscuit really pulls everything together nicely. The celebration cheesecake has the look of a dessert that's double the price and is de nitely one for those chocoholics among us. It has Belgian white chocolate, topped with chocolate ganache, chocolate truf es and treats and would make an amazing centrepiece for a dinner party. The speculoos tarts were perhaps a little on the dry side, although they do have a nice yet unusual avour to them. The Jaffa cake is an enlarged version of the all-time classic and has all the lovely orange avours you’d expect, with the added bonus of orange- avoured cream cheese in the middle. A solid range of desserts from Tesco. ★★★★★

24 mini cheesecake selection, £12; Plant Kitchen churros, £4; salted caramel cheesecake, £5; toffee & honeycomb traybake, £4

The M&S selection is good, with some stand-out desserts. The mini cheesecake selection only has a selection of just two varieties, a tangy raspberry and white chocolate and a rich chocolate chunk version. Although they tasted good, we did think they were a little on the small side for the price and there could have been more variety. The churros, however, were the striking dessert from the selection, made from fried wheat our with a pot of delicious, rich chocolate sauce and a cinnamon sugar sprinkle to put over the top – a tasty reminder of warm holiday evenings in Spain! The cheesecake was a little underwhelming as the caramel avour isn’t very strong and the base a little bland. The traybake is extremely sweet, perhaps too sweet for some, although the Dulche de Leche toffee sauce mixed with the crumbly base is a lovely combination. ★★★★★