White Toque Desserts

Time for another review of a wholesale supplier, this one I think doesn't actually make any of the goods themselves, but rather, sources from a variety of manufacturers around the world.

White Toque is a distributor of "a new world of frozen & specialty food", including appetizers, condiments, jams & jellies, breads, pastry supplies, and of course, my favorite category: desserts. The later range from tarts to strip cakes and lots of adorable mini individual creations, which is where I focused my attention. They don't sell to individuals, but are used in many food service settings.

Pudding Cups

"Colorful and tasty mini dessert mousses served in an elegant plastic cup. 4 flavors: Chocolate, Tiramisu, Lemon Crumble, and Raspberry. Spoons included in case with product." -- GourmetXpress, Distrbutor 

I adore creamy desserts. Pudding. Panna Cotta. Creme brulee. Love them. Hence the dedicated labels on my blog. So of course these were the first thing I ordered from White Toque.

Assorted Mini Pudding Cups.

But ... frozen puddings?  I was skeptical.  But hopeful.  If grocery store shelf-stable plastic pudding cups can be decent ... these could too, right? 

All came served in tiny little cups with tiny little spoons.  Kinda adorable.  But quite small, the serving size is even listed as four, which does entirely seem reasonable.

Each pudding is a three layered creation, with a small layer at the base and a small layer on top, in addition to the primary pudding.  They all came with garnishes as well.  I tried all available varieties.

Chocolate.

The chocolate version was the one that most people dove for: three layers of different chocolate, plus white chocolate on top.

This is the only one that didn't have a crumble/cake/carb based base.  The bottom layer was just a darker, thicker pudding it seemed.  It was fine, but ... not really special.  The main pudding was a chocolate pudding, milk chocolate, decent creamy texture but not much flavor.  On top, thick chocolate ganache, again, ok texture, but not much flavor.

I didn't really like this.  All the elements had nothing majorly wrong, but, they just weren't very good.  My second to last favorite, and I didn't finish it.

**+.

Tiramisu.

The tiramisu cup is a fairly classic mini tiramisu parfait.

The base, a thin layer of espresso (ok, coffee extract) soaked cake.  Soft, very well soaked, tons of coffee flavor.  I don't think it was ladyfingers as a real tiramisu, but, it worked.  The mushy quality of it worked ok here.

Next, fluffy mascarpone based mousse.  It was the fluffiest of the four pudding cups, certainly a lighter texture, and you could taste a hint of mascarpone.  On top was just regular sweetened whipped cream and a dusting of cocoa powder.

Nothing earth shattering here, but a decent little pudding cup.  It would be even better if garnished with a dark chocolate covered espresso bean, I wanted a touch of crunch.  My favorite, and I'd have this again, but wouldn't seek it out.

***.

Raspberry Vanilla.

The raspberry one had ... a cake layer at the base, a vanilla pudding for the primary pudding filling, raspberry gelee as the top layer, and a whole raspberry and pistachio bits on top.

The cake was ... a watery, mushy pile of plain cake, that was stained kinda pink.  Similar to the tiramisu, but it didn't work well here.  Not exactly a good texture, clearly not something that worked well frozen and brought to temperature.

The pudding though was decent, vanilla flavored, creamy.  Raspberry gelee on top was fruity and a nice contrast.  The berry was sad though, clearly frozen and then warmed up, mushy.  I liked the crunch from pistachio.

Not what I'd pick as an ideal pudding, but, not bad.  My second favorite.

***.

Lemon Crumble.

And lastly, lemon crumble, a lemon meringue pie inspired parfait, with a crumble base (meh, not watery like the cake, but still mush), a lemon flavored pudding (meh, never my thing), meringue (definitely not my thing), and candied citrus peel on top for garnish.

Everyone's last pick, and went unfinished.

**.

Choux Pastry

Caramel & Chocolate Pic'Pops.

Next up, the Pic'Pops.  While these might look like cake pops, they are not.

They are actually cream puffs, filled with assorted cream fillings, dipped in flavored coatings, and rolled in additional toppings.

This display had two kinds, caramel and chocolate.  These were a unique item, but, not particularly good.

Caramel Pic'Pop.

"Choux lollipop filled with caramel cream and coated with crispy caramelized hazelnut pieces." 

I liked the coating on this, caramel white chocolate I think, sweet, flavorful, and it went nicely with the chopped nuts on the outside.

This shell was my favorite component.

Caramel Pic'Pop: Inside.

Inside, under the shell, was the choux pastry, which wasn't great. Thin, spongy, meh.

It was filled with caramel cream, which was decent.  Sweet, thick, but nothing special.

***.

Churros!

White Toque makes two kinds of churros, either filled with chocolate cream or caramel.

Chocolate Filled Churro.

"Authentic churros filled with chocolate and imported from ES."

This was a fine churro. Not particularly notable in any way.

Our pastry team coated it in powdered sugar for some bonus points.

Chocolate Filled Churro: Inside.

The filling was a thick chocolate pudding.  It too was unremarkable.  Not very deep chocolate flavor, but generously stuffed. 

***+.