Sweet surprises from Coconut Collaborative

After generally mocking Planet Organic after my last visit for the sort of prices that would make an oil baron suck the air in through their teeth, I'm rapidly having to rethink my stance on the subject.

I popped back in to laugh at the £8 sandwiches, and came out several quid lighter after finding two new Coconut Collaborative products.

You know Coconut Collaborative - they make fab, if a bit expensive, yoghurts right? Well, now they make fab, if a bit expensive, desserts too. (Admittedly, those desserts are a bit less expensive if you don't buy them at Planet Organic, I'd guess, but I've never seen them elsewhere.)

Check out these, the Coconut Collaborative Little Choc Pots:

I don't know why the packaging looks so battered. It's not a new distressed packaging trend, it's just what happens when I carted them home without treating them with the love and care they deserve.

They're way more dainty than they look in this generous picture - they're about the size of a golf ball. If a golf ball was a pot filled with chocolateness. But if that sounds a wee bit too small for you dessert fiends out there, then fear not - these are so rich, even that golf ball sized pot should leave you very happy (and scraping your spoon around forlornly when you get to the bottom of it).

(Spoon mark model's own.)

They remind me a bit of a the Pudology chocolate pots, only a little bit better (sorry Pudology, I love you guys too!). The choc pot is basically a mix of chocolate and coconut cream - which is everything that I want in life, and this doesn't disappoint. It's wonderfully smooth - the sort of mousse other mousses put up pictures of on their bedroom walls.

The other new addition to my Coconut Collaborative roster is the dairy-free rice puddings.

I used to live on rice pudding when I was a kid. I used to eat that stuff that came in a tin - I didn't mind its jelly-like consistency that reminded me of frogspawn, I just hoovered it up in front of the wrestling on a Saturday. When I was at university, I ate the similarly gelatinous stuff that came in refridgerated pots. I think those pots of rice pudding and tinned macaroni cheese (seriously, I used to put that in my mouth) were all that kept me from starvation and/or scurvy during my years in further education.

As a result of my early relationship with rice pudding, by the time I left university I was heartily sick of the sight of the stuff. I don't remember buying it, or making it since, though I enjoyed it when people made it for me.

Still, when I see a new vegan product, I'm powerless to resist buying it - I took the rice pudding home to see if it could rekindle my love affair with the milky grains.

First impressions weren't all good - I tried it cold, and the rice seemed a bit on the hard side, the milky part too thick. It was all a bit too rich for me - could all those years of eating dirty, dirty rice pudding at university had ravaged my palate?

So, I channelled my earliest rice pudding memories and warmed up the rice pudding (sadly, no wrestling was on at the time). And you know what? It was lovely! The rice softened up, and the sauce thinned out, light shone down upon it, and all was well with the world.

Rice pudding, don't ever leave me again.