The 2014 Christmas mince pie test
Which supermarkets have the best mince pies this year?
Tesco’s mince pies have received top marks in this year's mince pie taste test.
Heston Blumenthal’s puff pastry pies came last in the 2013 test, but his shortcrust offering this year took second place, while Sainsbury’s pies, which were the favourite last Christmas, have plummeted down to the bottom of the table.
Tesco triumph
Tesco received a score of 6.5/10, fending off the competition. Its pies are priced at £2.50 for six – that’s 42p per pie. Our tasters liked both the pastry and the filling, saying that there was a “good flavour balance” and a decent ratio of filling to pastry.
The Heston from Waitrose pies took second place, with Marks and Spencer placing third.
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Sainsbury’s comes crashing down
Despite winning last year’s test, the 2014 pies from Sainsbury’s have an overpowering flavour of orange that most people didn’t like. One of our tasters said that it “tastes like Berocca,” though it did also find a few fans. If you really like orange sweets, you might still think these are good.
The test
Our tasters ate their way through ten different mince pies from major retailers, rating the pies based on their taste. It was conducted blind, with each pie referred to with a number.
Here are the rankings, prices and the average score given by our tasters.
|
Rank by score |
Pie |
Price for six/price per pie |
Score out of 10 |
|
1 |
Tesco finest* |
£2.50/42p |
6.5 |
|
2 |
Heston from Waitrose shortcrust |
£3.50/58p |
6.2 |
|
3 |
M&S All Butter Luxury Recipe |
£2.50/42p |
6.0 |
|
4= |
Aldi Specially Selected |
£1.49/25p |
5.9 |
|
4= |
Iceland Luxury |
£1.50/25p |
5.9 |
|
5 |
Co-operative Loved by Us |
£1/17p |
5.8 |
|
6 |
Morrisons M Signature |
£1.79/30p |
5.7 |
|
7 |
Lidl Snowy Lodge |
£1.49/25p |
5.5 |
|
8 |
Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference |
£2.50/42p |
4.9 |
|
9 |
Asda Extra Special |
£1.89/32p |
4.8 |
Simply put, Asda’s pies just aren’t very good. “Stodgy” with “rubbish pastry” and an unremarkable filling, and they’re not even the cheapest pies here.
Sainsbury’s also trails near the bottom, as does Lidl which had “good mince” but failed to excite.
Value for money
The Co-operative ‘Loved by Us’ pies are the cheapest we tried out, at 17p per pie – £1 a pack – and they placed mid-table for taste. In terms of score to price, they’re actually the top rated, just as they were last year.
Second best value for money are Aldi and Iceland in joint 4th place. The Aldi pies are 1p cheaper for a pack of six, so I wouldn’t go out of my way for that saving. Either is fine.
Heston’s pies might have scored highly, but they don’t represent as good a value for money as M&S does with its cheaper pies, which scored only slightly lower among our tasters.
Do you agree with the results? Is there somewhere better to get mince pies? Let us know in the Comments below.
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