Review: Instant Black sesame dessert - Torto vs SingLong vs Hollyfarms

I love anything black sesame. When I was still in uni, the black sesame dessert from the asian mart kept me warm on many a cold Melbourne night. It wasn't until my mum recently bought a packet of instant black sesame dessert that I rediscovered my love for this stuff. And so started our buying spree to discover the brand we liked the most.

The contestants: Torto, Hollyfarms, SingLong

Did you know that Hollyfarms is a brand owned by SingLong? I didn't know, until I had to do a quick search to find out more about the company. Hollyfarms' other instant desserts and jellies are a favourite with my family (namely the mango pudding and almond jelly).

Ingredients and instructions

These were tested over the course of a few days, following the instructions as closely as possible. Obviously if you like a thicker dessert, you put less water; if you like it less sweet,  you put more water and so on and so forth. So I thought to be as objective as possible, I'd have to follow the instructions closely.

The sachets

I like my black sesame paste less sweet but with a full bodied taste, whereas my mum likes hers really sweet. There are many factors that will sensitise your tastebuds to sweetness, such as age, diet, exposure to large amounts of sugar, etc. So I speak from my perspective ok?

The other important factor about a good sesame dessert is the consistency. My mum and I both agree we hate it watery.

So here are the results, ranked for each characteristic, with 1 being the highest:

Sweetness:  
3-Torto, 2-Hollyfarms, 1-SingLong

Robust flavour: 
3-Torto, 2-SingLong, 1-Hollyfarms

Thickness: 
3-SingLong, 2-Hollyfarms, 1-Torto

As you can see, Hollyfarms is a good all-rounder for flavour and consistency. It's not too watery but not as thick as I would like.

The one I clearly don't like is SingLong as it is cloyingly sweet yet watery like a broth. So much for low sugar. But my mum loves this as she finds it has "taste". That's just sugar, mummy.

The overall winner for me is Torto as it is very thick and pasty. This is the only product that contains thickener. I like that it isn't too sweet and if I crave that bit more sweetness, I can always add sugar. You can't take sugar out of the others.

Verdict : Torto for me, but would settle for Hollyfarms 
Love the thick consistency of this stuff. Although Hollyfarms is decent too. All of these were purchased from various NTUC outlets.
If you know of any good instant black sesame desserts available in SG, don't be shy, do share!