Bought Mince Pies Quality Testing

[frozendaisy]

Anyone any good at this?

I have some tesco finest waiting to get home and the youngster to help quality test, we are the only two permanent household members who like a mince pie so the other's opinions are irrelevant.

I definitely prefer ones with a hint of brandy/port.

So anyone else have any favourites, or just as important ones to avoid that are good year after year

Am thinking M&S will need a test run.

There were contenders in Aldi.

These are also my favourites!

My Taid (grandfather) swears by the Gregg's ones though.

Sainsbury’s taste the difference brandy ones are traditionally my favourite.
Now the best vegan alternative so far has been Asda OMV range.

I love the Greggs ones. They taste more homemade even though they're not. The Aldi ones with Ballycastle (fake Baileys) flavour buttercream are good.

Further report on some intensive mince pie tasting...the Co-op luxury mince pies were pretty good, nice pastry not too thick, the filling was a bit gloopy for me but had a good flavour. Aldi Jamaican rum mince tarts were lovely but very sweet and not really a mince pie. M&S luxury mince pie was also nice, very similar to Co-op ones, not really a stand-out though and I thought the pastry was a wee bit thick. So far I think the Aldi specially selected all-butter mince pies are my favourite. Am hoping to get to Iceland soon for a pack of theirs

I noticed that the Aldi Specially Selected with Ballycastle (Aldi knock-off Baileys) topping are back this year so will avail myself of a box or two later this week.

B&M also sell packs of frangipane topped mince pies. We've eaten a few packs of them already

Thanks for all your hard work.

I bake my own for us but always send a box to my PIL, we normally buy Waitrose so I see that I get one of theirs again.

@35pEnergyDrink for Stollen I recommend the Lidl Marzipan one. I am German and love it, I don't bother baking my own anymore. You can't beat the classics. We go through 2-3 each year.

My 19yo son, who has a VERY restricted diet, loves Lidl mini stollen. I got some in Aldi the other day and he said they're 'disgusting'. I got some stollen slices from somewhere last year, also not good. So Lidl wins for the mini stollen!

That is basically the same minus the marzipan. I think they do it in a large version as well.

Another vote for Greggs (but I like a slightly austere pastry). The only thing that could improve them would be granulated sugar sprinkled on top, instead of the dusting of icing sugar.

Sainsbury's Taste the Difference and Greggs - this after many years of testing/tasting. Occasionally a Heston one, but they are expensive and some are more special than others.

It's my favourite Xmas activity to sample all the mince pies from all the supermarkets 😝. I haven't started yet this year...

I bought the very expensive m and s brown butter ones , as they were reduced , but they were very unpleasant . The texture was all wrong, they had a hard crunchy layer . Will stick to Iceland !

Tesco's frangipani ones are nice, Greggs were better than expected too. Love the Costco ones and we buy/freeze those for after Christmas too.

Ooo I am going to try these.

Which Iceland ones are good there seems to be a choice?

The Luxury Butter ones.

So I have tried the Iceland luxury butter pies now as well, and they were nice but not outstandingly so. Pastry was very good, filling was ok, quite citrus. I think this year my favourites are Aldi specially selected followed by Co op luxury followed by Iceland all butter pies. And I really, really like the Lidl amaretto mince tarts but DH insists they're not a mince pie (they're definitely not a pie, but they're very tasty). Moving on now to testing chocolate Yule logs. I have a Co op one and also hoping to try the Lidl one (both sounded nice in the Good Housekeeping Christmas food reviews)

I've given up on yule logs - they can vary so much from dry and horrible to too much icing and too sweet (which is not a phrase I say often) Last year we had an M&S Christmas Colin and it was brilliant. There was a stack of them in M&S food on Christmas Eve and the kids didn't want to leave him there alone, which was very lucky.

I like Tesco finest mince pies, I think they’re very nice. I haven’t tried Aldi specially selected, but now plan to having read this thread! I did try Aldi’s ones with a frangipane topping last week. I didn’t like them at all even though I usually love frangipane.They had a really strong fake almond taste. Still scoffed the lot obviously, just complained a lot while doing so 🫣

Waitrose No 1 Brown Butter Mince Pies with Cognac

Bought some today , tried one . They are not very nice at all , the pastry feels like it's lard , crisp but leaves a coating on my mouth , mincemeat bland .

I;m passu=ing the rest to DH who said they were "okay" and sticking with Sainsbury Bakery