NEW! Chocolate & Hazelnut Müller Rice (Morrisons)

When's the last time you had a Müller Rice? It's only just dawned on me that I haven't bought one in months. Once upon a time I'd have them a few times a week for dessert, but since my ice cream addiction got out of hand I rarely buy them - although admittedly I'd got a bit bored with the flavours too. Every few months Müller bring out a new limited edition but more recently the company have got a little lazy and have just reinstated previously retired flavours (such as the banana & toffee, chocolate, maple syrup and salted caramel).

At long last they've come up with a new concoction though: chocolate and hazelnut. Short of releasing a peanut butter/peanut butter & chocolate variant*, a Nutelle-esque rice pud is about as up my street as it gets! The new flavour didn't come without concerns though -so far Müller's chocolatey pots have been pretty pants in my book. I haven't got along with the insipid sickliness of the sauce at the bottom, and even gave every single one of the chocolate & caramel flavour pots in the Going The a Distance multipack to Bert.

"Creamy dairy rice with smooth chocolate & hazelnut sauce (15%)."

I spotted the new Chocolate & Hazelnut Müller Rice at Morrisons and ummed and ahhed for a moment on wasting the money on a pot, then got a grip and reminded myself that it was just 69p (although they're now 50p in Sainsbury's) and bought one.

As always, I stuck my pud in the freezer for 45 mins before retrieving it. The sauce had behaved itself and had remained at the bottom, but I could still smell the sweet hazelnut scent emanating through the creamy rice topping.

We'll blow me down; the flavour was rather good! It was still a thin 'ice cream topping' style sauce, but the taste of hazelnut was at the forefront and complimented the chocolate. Perhaps it would have been better with a denser texture -akin to the consistency of the caramel core in Ben & Jerry's Karamel Sutra for example- but it was still much better than expected.

I then decided to take my chances and microwaved the second half. Now I always normally prefer my rice puddings ice cold, and so the second surprise came when i found that I loved this flavour warm too. In fact it was easier to imagine I was eating melted Nutella that way, and the chocolate mixed into the rice easily.

For a low fat (but high sugar!) dessert it tasted very indulgent, and this flavour is certainly one I'd buy again. Bravo Müller!

9/10

*can you imagine? Yes please!

NEW! Banana & Toffee Müller Rice (Morrisons)

There are a couple of retired Müller Rice's that I yearn for. I'm already missing the Maple Syrup flavour, and I hope for the return of the Apple Strudel one day, but my hands down favourite ever Müller Rice has to be the banana and toffee. I've already harped on about how much I love banoffee this month, so I am eternally grateful to Instagram (and especially to nourishingnic) for bringing this 'new' going the distance flavour to my attention.

The only problem is that the banana and toffee is only available as a six-pack, combined with the rather repulsive chocolate and caramel flavour. Don't you hate it when companies do that? Fortunately my other half can stomach the chocolatey ones, so I popped down to Morrisons to pick up a pack -where all Müller six packs are currently on a two-for-£3 deal FYI.

The banana and toffee flavoured rice pudding was every bit as good as I remember. As always I enjoyed my pot ice-cold, and saved the banoffee sauce until the very end. 

The banana flavour was on the artificial side, foam-sweet-esque, but as an avid lover of banana nesquik -and in fact anything related to the fruit- I certainly didn't mind. If you're after a thick, buttery, Dulce de Leche style sauce you'll be bitterly disappointed by this Müller Rice as it's much sweeter and runnier than that -but I thought that it was nostalgically delicious and relished every last spoonful. 

9/10

NEW Chocolate & Caramel Müller Rice (ASDA)

It's new Müller Rice time! This spring the company has relaunched two retired flavours (smooth chocolate and salted caramel) and released one entirely new flavour -which happened to be a combination of both old/new flavours- chocolate and caramel.

It's no secret how much I love that very flavour pairing, indeed it's obvious from my plethora of chocolate & caramel reviews (most recently M&S' new salted caramel and Belgian milk chocolate ice creams) so I don't need to tell you how excited I was to try this new Müller Rice.

As with the new Gold Müller Corners, the new rice pudding has Olympic themed packaging and has been named the 'Going The Distance Edition'. The title seems rather apt considering each pot contains over 25g of sugar and would therefore be likely to put the children on the ceiling for a few hours!

I'm not sure why I decided to warm the Müller Rice, as I normally like mine super cold -to the point where they're starting to freeze- but I figured that most people enjoy them warm so decided to join the crowd. I whacked it on high in the microwave until it started to bubble and the scent of sweet chocolate permeated the room -a good indication as to how yummy the dessert would surely be!

The creamy rice was as delicious as always; milky-sweet and comforting. The chocolate and caramel came from the pool of sauce at the bottom, which I gave a good mix into the rice above. 

Did you ever have Ambrosia rice topped with Lyle's ice cream sauces as a child? Well that's what this reminded me of. The caramel flavour was sickly sweet and lacked any thickness or depth of flavour, whilst the chocolate was overpowered and lost altogether. It's a shame really because it smelt so promising, but the dessert just tasted like the thinly-veiled sugar rush that it truly was. 

Maybe my dislike came from the temperature of the pud -it may well be one best served cold. Fortunately I bought another (all Müller singles are 12 for £3 in ASDA at the moment FYI) so I will update this post as and when I've braved it again. Have you tried the new Müller Rice? What do you think?

6/10

NEW Naughty But Rice Coconut & Raspberry

Naughty but rice is a new British company who produce indulgent rice puddings made with whole milk and cream. They make three different 'fabulous flavours': Salted Caramel, Chocolate Orange and Coconut and Raspberry, which are stocked in Morrisons stores. I thought I'd take advantage of their offer price of 75p (for one pot) to try their Coconut and Raspberry as  I love coconut but it's relatively underused in British desserts. 

Each 140g dessert comes in a very pretty little pot decorated with Pop Art style illustrations. Naughty But Rice advise that you can eat it hot or cold, but given how cold it was last night I decided to heat mine up in the microwave. The coconut and raspberry flavour does not come from a layer like the Muller rice pots, but is incorporated into the whole dessert, which means it's a pretty dusky pink colour. 

I heated mine for the suggested one minute, but it was only lukewarm and so I popped it back into the microwave for a further 30 seconds. I might have made a mistake though, because the dessert was really claggy -almost the same consistency as peanut butter- something I'm not used to as a regular consumer of Muller Rice. The flavour however was delicious, the coconut and raspberry both came through wonderfully in equal measures. It was a comforting combination and brought me right back to being a child and enjoying warm jam & coconut sponge.

If I buy these again, I'll try them cold and see if it's less claggy, but I'm not in any hurry- I think I'll be sticking to my Muller. 

6/10