"not my cuppatea!"

Dark chocolate cheesecake

After a shopping day in Crawley (somewhere close to Gatwick airport), we decided to have some afternoon tea. We weren't exactly spoilt for choice (too cold to go outside the mall to find an ever so safe Starbucks), so we decided to have our caffeine fix at Druckers Café, a sister company of the Patisserie Valerie cafés in London. The pastry display looked promising and reminded me of the cosy boulangeries I loved in Geneva. So I licked my lips and ordered a cheesecake.

It probably could have been a really good cheesecake but it didn't taste as pleasant as it looked. The sponge base was crumbly (which is sometimes passable and fun for cheesecake - if you have a biscuit base) and almost tasted stale. The 'cheese' layer was gelatinous which is not my cup of tea when it comes to cheesecake. I like to taste the crumble of ricotta and the smoothness of marscapone and know that there's proper cheese on my cheesecake. The whole thing did not taste like cheesecake at all. I wondered if they'd switch the labels, maybe my 'cheesecake' wasn't a cheesecake after all, but the server confirmed my fears: it was just a really bad one.

It's really such a shame but I'm not completely giving up. I've not tried any enough desserts from the cafés  to say all of them are absolutely crap. The cakes on the website really look amazing, and though I've learned not to be deceived by looks, I'm hopeful that at least some of them would really really hit the spot.

I'm now on a mission to try another Patisserie Valerie dessert. Watch this space.