To be underwhelmed by store's Christmas food

[SheSaidHummingbird]

Lighthearted.

Tesco's Christmas food this year is totally underwhelming... I'm usually tempted to splurge on tempting desserts at least, but this year it seems like they haven't even tried to make it special. (Only singling out Tesco as this is where I do my main shop, so can't speak for the other stores' offerings).

At least I'll save a lot of money this year! 😉

I was underwhelmed by the M&S offerings the other day. I'd gone in there for some slippers, got those and then thought I'd have a browse around their Christmas food since I was there anyway,and maybe buy a few things to put in the freezer. It was either on the weird side, or bog standard but more expensive than elsewhere, so I left empty-handed. Shame really, as this year our finances are better than before so can afford to upgrade a bit. Oh well.

Wondering what sort of special foods you are typically looking for at Christmas. I don't tend to buy anything as far as main dishes and deserts but noticed Lidl had a lovely Christmas section with starters, cheeses, salami and caviar. I've been shopping in that section for most of November

Just seen preprepared baked beans on crumpets?! For £11? Really?

@Catza Any kind of yule log or roulade is my Achilles heel, and usually Tesco has an extremely tempting fresh chocolate yule log. But nothing this year. As @sixteenfurryfeet says, it's either bizarre or too safe.

@SheSaidHummingbird I agree. Have been in several supermarkets including Waitrose and M&S. All the party food looks brown and bland. Very disappointing

Tempted by Lidl black forest cheesecake and stacked pavlova. They have a luxury yule log but looks a bit sickly. Maybe ok with single cream on it. Sainsburys have a fresh cream chocolate yule log which looks nice but is pretty big. There's only the 3 of us so would take a few days to get through it. We've had the Sainsburys sherry trifle which DH and MIL loved.

I couldn't find a Yule log in M&S or Waitrose in Bluewater last weekend. Gutted.

I do agree with you. What I've seen so far this year has been underwhelming to say the least.
The only thing I would say is that if you are looking at fresh foods, and desserts in particular, you may find there are more options in a weeks time. Fresh food can have extremely short dates on it, and stores are likely to not have larger, more expensive desserts until close to Christmas, as few people will want to buy them if the date is the 22nd Dec and they won't be able to use it at Christmas.

It's worth bearing in mind that a lot of Christmas food doesn't appear in store until next week. M&S have desserts in from 18th Dec so other supermarkets are the same. I've been to Sainsbury's today and most Christmas food will appear next week so I presume most supermarkets are the same.

@Whatineed having carried out extensive and selfless taste tests I believe the best supermarket Yule log is the Morrisons “best” one (not the regular one in the red box). The cake is moist and the icing is fudgey and the ratios are spot on.

@Whatineed None at all!? Christmas is ruined.

@Stressybetty Just had a look at the fresh tile on the Sainsbury's website and the reviews have put me off!

M&S yule logs this year are white chocolate ones. Nope. Not buying that.

https://orders.booths.co.uk/booths-festive-yule-cake.ht

They look disgusting. The taste trial I read said Aldi’s Yule log beat all the others.

The sherry one? Yeah I didn't fancy it, odd mix of fruit. DH and MIL liked it but did say you couldn't tell there was sherry in it. Expensive for a fiver too.

Very glad now I didn't splurge on the Sainsburys yule log for 7 quid after reading the reviews!

Dh picked up a Sainsburys taste the difference yule log for pudding tonight, it was horrifically sweet and no real chocolate flavour, just sugar!
dd2 said she’d make us a proper one at the weekend to make up for our collective disappointment 😂

Dh said it was £5 but whatever it cost was too much, it was bloody horrid!

@Stressybetty It was the £7 one I was looking at. Not worth it to try it out.

My local M&S seems to have only put out their Christmas food over the past 24 hours. I’m away over the holidays so didn’t buy anything but was tempted.

I'm going to try the Morrison's Yule log, based on Hermione's selfless testing upthread! I'm also after a good black forest or any good chocolate and cherry dessert.

Buy a chocolate Swiss roll, slap on some chocolate butter cream, run a fork over it and sprinkle with icing sugar. Job done.

But also just checked Booths Christmas book and they have a Black Forest roulade.

Get yourself to Aldi!
i had to rein it in today… so many delicious things.
Stollen, mince pies with icing on them… all
the Lieberküchen, cheeses, meats and frozen party food… Brazil nuts covered in chocolate, fudges, nougat… 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 and then there’s the wine section…. 🫣🫣🫣
Somebody stop me!!! 😱😱😱

Thank for the advice but it's the one thing I don't make. I've always bought one from M&S as its my birthday cake, and therefore it's my indulgent treat to me. I wanted to bring it back with me from the UK.

I will buy a French version at the local bakery for my birthday instead. It's not the same in terms of chocolatey gooiness, but a nice alternative.

I was surprised at the lack of choice overall really. The party food section looked delicious though.