Toppo – Burnt Basque Cheesecake

During my trip to Japan, among the other trends I noticed that were big at the time like bubble tea, cheesecake was a big thing. Not just any cheesecake mind you, since cheesecake has been a big thing in Japan for quite some time now. Basque cheesecake was in vogue – essentially it’s a way of baking cheesecake so that the outside is slightly burnt and dark, creating a caramelized, almost hard exterior to contrast the creamy, rich cheesy interior.

The only thing more fascinating than the emergence of basque style cheesecake was the fact that all the big convenience store chains were competing to see who had the best one. As it turns out, there was an entire TV segment dedicated to comparing 7-11 food items to other food items made by “experts” or “culinary masters”. I use quotations because I don’t have enough context to know who anyone is. All I could make out from context was that they were going head to head – professional chefs vs. the culinary experts at 7-11 to see who could make the better product. Crazy marketing and product plugging aside, the show was quite entertaining to watch, and we feigned a bit of surprise as the 7-11 version per-packed basque cheesecake won over the freshly made one by the professionals. The show then went on to talk about the process of how they created it, and how they engaged professional cheesecake makers (cheesecakers?) and that’s what they owed their success to.

I have to say it’s pretty genius marketing. Whether the product is better or worse, if the show is sponsored by 7-11, there’s a good chance that the judges or experts deliberating would at least say that the 7-11 product is close, or “still good”. The slightly cynical side of me gets a little worried seeing something like this on TV, but then I think back to how crazy capitalism works here in the North, and I breathe a sigh of momentary relief. Just momentarily.

Being the foodies that we were, we decided to test it out ourselves, and went to buy the 7-11 basque cheesecake. As it turns out, it was actually really good. Surprisingly so, not because it came from 7-11, but because it was per-packaged and sat in the freezer aisle. We tried some of the other chains versions, and we all agreed the 7-11 was indeed the best. Were we swayed by the TV segment? Probably not. It convinced us to try it to see what the hype was, but we all went into it pretty cynical. Colour us all surprised. So much so we would have them again on 3 different occasions. Even now I sometimes think back fondly to it.

Perhaps trying out this flavour of Toppo is some vane attempt to recapture some of that magic. Or perhaps I just like Toppo and anything cheese adjacent is enough to make me throw money at them. Probably more the latter. I’ve mentioned before that one reason I like Toppo more than say, Pocky is that the way the snack is designed, it’s relatively mess free and easy to eat without worrying about melting and all that.

This variety looks to be the chonker version. The box has two pouches, and each pouch is probably going to have seven sticks. That may not sound like a lot until you see how thick these things are. They also feel very hefty to pick up, which is always a good sign. When I think back to when I was a kid and had classmates who would chew on their pencils, the only way I could ever imagine doing the same is if the pencils were shaped like, and looked like these. Although I feel like pencil weighs less than one of these. Though I guess I can’t say for sure. I haven’t used or touched a pencil in years. Are pencils still a thing??

The outer biscuit has a nice pretzel like texture to it. It’s not very dry though, and is slightly slick to the touch. It’s not the fragile variety of biscuit that leaves crumbs behind. No – this is very much like a nice quality pretzel that’s sturdy, and won’t leave behind crumbs from shattering. The chocolate filling is supposed to emulate cheesecake. While the inside isn’t melty, it’s soft enough to contrast the nice snap of the outer pretzel-like biscuit. If you’ve ever had those filling filled pretzels called Combos – imagine a smaller, narrower version of it. That’s what this reminds me of, and definitely in a good way. Oh and I guess these are sweet, as opposed to combos that tend to be savoury and salty.

The flavour of the biscuit is fairly neutral, so most of the flavour is going to be from the filling itself. This is where I find this flavour to be lacking (pun intended). It isn’t that I don’t taste any cheese, but that it’s fairly faint, and mild. The beauty of basque style cheesecake is the caramelized outside contrasts the cheesy, rich flavour on the inside. The flavour I get from these sticks is fairly one-note. I can’t tell if this is because the basque cheesecake they were simulating are more mild in flavour and focus more on texture, but the flavour is just barely cheesecake to me. In all honesty, if you mixed these sticks with typical vanilla chocolate filling, I would barely be able to distinguish.

That isn’t to say I don’t enjoy these, because I absolutely love them. But if you can find another cheese or vanilla chocolate flavour for cheaper, go for those. I wouldn’t say no to more of these though, on account of I’m all out and already craving more. While I wouldn’t consider them basque cheesecake, they are close enough to cheese dessert that I’ll let it slide.