Are you a buyer for the M&S Bakery? Talk me through your thinking …

[Starmadrama]

… in relation to hot cross buns. I’ve been in my local M&S today and the shelves were heaving with lots of flavours of hot cross buns - red velvet, chocolate, lemon etc - but the section for fruit ones was empty. Clearly there is very little demand for these bastardised hot cross buns!

I finally found a single pack of fruit buns abandoned by the till. I did think about getting the fruit buns earlier in the week but the expiry date was before Easter 🙄

Did any market research inform this expansion of the Hot Cross Bun offer I wonder?

The kids enjoyed the cheese ones toasted.
Im working my way through a pack of the traditional mini ones.
M and S used to do apple and raisin fruit loaf for toasting, all year round. I’ve not seen an apple hot cross bun either.
I miss the gingerbread and white chocolate cookies with salted caramel. And I don’t usually buy cookies, that’s how good they were.

I don’t think I’ve seen any fresh hot crossed buns at all this year, just the ones that come in packets that are weeks old and always seem a bit stale so I haven’t bought even one!

Not even slightly interested in the flavoured ones.

A couple of weeks ago my local M&S were selling the peppermint bark cookies (with the stripy Xmas sticker seal too!). I wondered if they had found a batch in the freezer so put them out 🤣

I don't believe in these concoctions at all. I don't understand how you toast and butter some of them, which is surely the point. But all the more for those who like lemons, chocolate or coffee (FFS) in their buns.
On a much more serious note, I hoped this thread was going to be about the disappearance of the apricot croissants from the fresh bakery counter. What the hell were they thinking? That's a classic bloody pastry! Bring it back.

@Davrosit shouldn’t be closed tomorrow? I think they’re all open tomorrow. Easter Sunday defo closed x

That's really interesting. Where's the pressure coming from though? Do consumers really want novelty flavours?

I live near an industrial bakery

if you go near it at certain times of year the whole area smells of hot cross bun

The lemon ones are utterly vile, I actually spat my one bite out. Horrible flabby, doughy texture, no fruit and bland with a synthetic bit of slime in the middle. Yuck.

Rhubarb and ginger ones - can’t remember where from but 🤢 love rhubarb and ginger but not in a HCB

I’ve tried a few of the new flavours but prefer the original, far better

I quite liked the Asda lemon and white chocolate - was light on the white chocolate (couldn’t taste any lol!) …

M&S tiramisu ones were utterly ghastly (as you'd expect - but they were bought at my daughter's request). Sainsbury's apple and cinnamon were nice enough but their pack of 6 for 95p traditional buns from their in-house bakery were far superior. I too was encouraged to buy the lemon curd ones from M&S because I had a Sparks voucher and I love lemon curd. I have high hopes but the reviews above are not great.... keeping them for Good Friday.

I tried the red velvet ones as they were on flash sales on ocado. Really disappointed, I hadn't realised you can't cut them in half and toast! My kids do love the M&S chocolate ones thi

Do they though? Because I don't know anyone who does, and judging by the OP local, the customers near her don't either.

I bought some of those reduced from M&S not even my 15 year old who this morning ate chocolate spread on an everything bagel liked them!

the chocolate ones are epic

What's inside them, please?

edit - MN is impossible to use

I meant to quote the poster who said she couldn't toast the red velvet ones

I will say that Apple one sounds quite nice

Some sort of chocolatey goo

Tea cakes are way better than hot cross buns

Those were my absolute favourites.

The chocolate M&S hot cross buns are the best and I would buy those any day over a classic!

It's like a white chocolate sauce. Not for me! And I love lemon but think they're similar so won't bother.

<Rant mode>
No no no no no.

Hot cross buns are hot cross buns. You know, dried fruit, spice etc. I'll accept perhaps a little adulteration with chopped apple, but we all know what it is.

A triple chocolate hot cross bun or whatever isn't. It's a triple choc bun. Great if you like it, but it isn't a sodding hot cross bun.

And while I'm on a roll, supermarkets can sod off with calling pain au chocolat 'chocolate croissants'. They aren't, because although the basic dough may be the same it isn't a sodding crescent. The name literally says what it is. And you can bugger off with the straight croissant as well. Croissant == Crescent. Crescent crescent crescent. Get it. And don't put any other chuffing flavours in a croissant. Not only does it have to be a crescent, it also has to be buttery pastry and nothing else.

This is why I should be allowed to carry weapons and be free to use them on any abuser of food names I see fit. This nonsense would soon stop in my brave new world once I've made a few examples of people pour encourager les autres and all that.

I'm going to start selling orange apples and lemon apples, because, you know, we might as well just call everything the same thing and be done with.
</Rant mode>

We thought the Bakewell ones were the joint worst of our trials this year alongside the M&S tiramisu

Top place went to Lidl St Clements but we’ve dropped back onto basic offerings from our local baker now

Toasted , filled with vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of golden syrup has featured regularly this last few weeks for afters

This was on Radio 2 this morning on Vernon’s vault.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/videos/c30rp70qvqjo