Konditor: More Brownie Than I Have Room For

Brownie Basics

Konditor is a pretty famous London bakery, with its original store pretty close to Waterloo station. I wanted to get one of their Pride brownies, but apparently they’re all out! So I settled for this instead.

Brownie Backstory

When the friend who gave me the idea for this blog found out that I had never been to Konditor, she went through a brief phase of surprise at how this had happened, before settling on the position that I should definitely review Konditor’s brownies but either a) not before I and the blog were better established, or b) I should wait and do a mega-post in which I review a whole bunch of their flavours (for they have many).

As you can see, I’ve done neither. Sorry friend! The latter was tempting, because they do sell pretty good-value brownie platters for £30, and I could have had a brownie party with a whole bunch of brownies. Or failing that, you can get four brownies for £10, and if Konditor had exactly four brownie flavours I might have done that for simplicity’s sakes. But they didn’t, they had… like seven or something? Therefore, with a heavy and boring heart, I just bought one brownie and am going to write about this brownie.

On consideration, exciting though the concept was, I don’t think this brownie is actually made with Cadbury’s Curly Wurlys. I was pretty sure from looking at it (and Konditor’s website confirmed this) that the curls on the top of the brownie are in fact cheesecake, not whatever’s inside a Curly Wurly (probably toffee?). That’s a little disappointing, but cheesecake brownies are generally quite delicious. That also makes this the second brownie in two days that I’ve bought which can be directly compared to a previous food market brownie! Would I have bought something else if I’d realised in the shop that this was clearly just a cheesecake brownie? Maybe, but I have it now, so let’s have at it.

Brownie Points

Taste: It’s really really really good. There aren’t solid chocolate chips in the batter, but there are suggestions that melted chocolate got half-blended in, and the chocolate flavour is perfect. The cheesecake on top is a good addition and not overwhelming. 9/10

Texture: It’s very nearly as good as the previous cheesecake brownie. Sadly, it’s just a little bit let-down by two things (nitpicks really): the cheesecake topping is slightly overdone, and the brownie as a whole is a tiny bit too chewy. Barely any problems, but they had to be mentioned as it’s not quite a top-marks brownie. 9/10

Presentation: It looks perfect. The only place it doesn’t look perfect is on the edge where it’s been cut, and I’m not going to start demanding that brownies don’t get cut into squares. All brownies should look this good. 5/5

Value: £2.95, although it would have effectively been £2.50 if I’d bought four of them. Like a lot of top-range brownies, the fact that it’s so good means this is a pretty great value proposition. 8/10

Fudge Factor: So I failed to get one of the Pride brownies, I guess they’ve sold out of them by now (Pride was nearly a week ago after all). But this is a place that does Pride brownies and celebrates Pride and it doesn’t feel like a whole co-opting the LGBT+ rights movement for the sake of selling more product (e.g.: Burger King pride crowns!). Also, perhaps more relevantly, this brownie was just great. But! It was not a Curly Wurly brownie, and I am admittedly disappointed that that was (sort of) promised and not delivered, so it’s shy of perfection. 3/5

Overall Points: 34

Should I Buy And Eat This Brownie?

Konditor say on their website that they make the best brownies in London. That claim is yet to be exhaustively verified, but for now: yes, go buy yourself a brownie.

Closing Thoughts

Seriously, fuck companies who co-opt the Pride branding to seem socially conscious while doing nothing to actually help LGBT+ people around the world.