Mr Kipling's Mississippi Mud Pie

I used to swear up and down I didn't like Mississippi Mud Pie...I think it was just a regional thing. I didn't like Mississippi, I'd be damned if I liked their stupid 'mud' pie. Psh, who would ever eat mud willingly, anyway? Mississippians...

I'm all grown up now, and I don't hate Mississippi, and I even find myself quite enjoying their mud pie. Well, at least as it is interpreted by English people...never had an American-made one, actually. I've tried the Melt Mississippi Mud Pie bar, which was amazing...but unfortunately I don't live or work anywhere near a Melt so...

Smart move, Kipling, smart move. Although, these are unlike other Mississippi Mud Pies that I've seen, sometimes they just look like plates of chocolate colored goop and sometimes they are inexplicably cake. Then again, sometimes they look quite a bit like this:

Which is chocolatey goop enclosed in a pastry shell. Oh, but this is some tasty chocolate goop. They say it is a mousse, but I don't get any whippy, moussey texture when eaten heated or cold. It is more dense than a mousse, but less dense than a ganache. Right in the middle of those two textures, really! The topmost layer is chocolate icing, but there is a real strong brown sugar taste to it--not complaining, it tastes amazing with the fudgey under layer.

It tastes quite chocolate-y, don't get me wrong, but there are also nice tones of brown sugar and graham cracker throughout. The pastry shell tastes a bit like graham crackers or digestive biscuits, with surprised me as it looks like more of a shortcrust pastry. I'm glad they went with this style though, as it is much nicer with the chocolate innards than a more savory crust would be. After all, this is a sweet, sweet pie. Too delicious, but quite small for something that packs 200+ calories a pop. That's what you get when you eat a tasty brown sugary chocolate pie, I suppose!

One of the top things that the UK completely obliterates America with is the availability of tasty cakes and pies on grocery store shelves. Mr Kipling could punch Little Debbie and Hostess straight onto the moon. You couldn't make me eat a Twinkie, but you couldn't stop me from eating an Angel slice.

By the way, I would highly recommended taking the time to heat these up, as the warming really seems to bring out the flavors and makes the texture more similar to actual mud. That is what we're eating them for, right?