SEASON’S EATINGS
We taste test supermarkets on three festive favourites...
Finest 12 Month Matured Christmas Pudding with Courvoisier Cognac (serves 8)
£6 Infused with cider, sherry and ruby port, the pud was a lovely dark colour and very nutty and fruity. It had a good consistency and was the booziest out of the puddings we tasted. We went back for more.
Extra Special Luxury Christmas Pudding (serves 8)
£6.50
Quite a large, rich pudding, this would easily serve eight. It had tons of plump vine fruits, and a strong whiff and taste of the French cognac it was doused in. Lovely.
Luxury 12 Month Matured Christmas Pudding (serves 6)
£6
Matured with brandy, sherry and cognac you can really smell the booze and taste it too, but it’s not overpowering. A good size and the flavour was a good balance of spice, fruit and alcohol. A winter warmer.
Deluxe Luxury 24 Month Matured Christmas Pudding with Courvoisier Cognac (serves 8)
£11.99 The booziest of all the puds we tested, this smelled and tasted fantastic. It was fruity, sticky and moist with juicy vine fruits and not too many nuts. Our favourite.
Irresistible Christmas Pudding (serves 4)
£3 With brandy, glacé cherries, almonds and walnuts, matured for 12 months by Christmas Day, this was a good, dark colour and looked like a pudding should but there was not much variation on flavour. It just tasted quite sweet. Not a hit.
Festive Prosecco & Orange-topped Christmas Pudding (serves 8)
£12
Looked a showstopper with its candied oranges and we do love prosecco. But this was a flavour too far. The pud was sickly sweet, made worse by the cranberry and prosecco pouring sauce. Style over substance.
6 Month Matured Christmas Pudding (serves 4) Specially selected Exquisite Vintage Christmas Pudding (serves 8) The Best Sloe Gin Christmas Pudding (serves 8)
£5
The smallest of the puds we tasted this looked traditional enough but didn’t have any strong flavour. It was cloyingly sweet and the consistency was a bit too mushy. Disappointing.
Taste The Difference 18 Month Matured Christmas Pudding (serves 8)
£9
Laced with cognac, this is a solid, traditional pudding. It was moist but could do with a little more booze. Perfectly pleasant but no ‘wow’ factor.
£9.99
Comes in a pretty green and gold presentation box so would make a nice gift too. It looks like a Christmas pud should, very dense and dark. It smelled fabulous and had a good boozy kick. A festive treat.
£8
This looked very pretty and had plenty of glistening fruits and nuts but the pudding itself was quite bland. Considering it’s infused with cider and white rum we couldn’t detect any alcohol on the palate.
6 Finest All Butter Pastry Deep Filled Mince Pies
£2 Very festive looking with a pretty snowflake pattern on top. They had a good amount of filling and were not overly sweet. Infused with cognac and port you get a slight kick of alcohol. Lovely shortcrust pastry too.
6 Extra Special All Butter Crumble Mince Pies 6 Luxury Mince Pies 6 Deluxe Luxury Mince Pies 6 Irresistible Luxury Mince Pies 6 The Collection Mince Pies 12 Mini All Butter Mince Pies 6 All Butter Mince Pies 4 Specially Selected Exquisite Mince Pies 6 The Best All Butter Deep Filled Mince Pies
£2 A rich crumble topping gives a lovely twist to the traditional mince pie. Quite shallow but well filled with the correct balance of filling to pastry. The case itself was quite crisp and the pie crumbles on top but not in your hand. Delicious.
£1.89 Traditional looking with a fresh-out-of-the-oven appeal thanks to varied colour on the pastry. Light, crumbly pastry melted in the mouth and they had the ideal filling to pastry ratio. A bit of an alcohol kick too. Very moreish.
£1.35 Decorated with a simple star, a sprinkling of sugar gave them a glittery look. Pastry was very crumbly but had a lovely buttery taste. They were well filled with a good traditional flavour to the mincemeat. A bargain buy for the price.
£2 Pretty snowflake-designed pies with a home-baked look and a smattering of icing sugar. Filled with rich fruit, nut and brandy mincemeat. Pastry was very crumbly and a bit tasteless. The filling was generous, moist and you can taste the spice with a slight kick of brandy.
£2.50 These looked very festive with a star shape on top but that’s where the praise ends. Shortcrust pastry was very crumbly and dry and there wasn’t much flavour to the filling of vine fruits, cranberries, clementine, cherries and brandy. They had a greasy aftertaste too. Disappointing.
£3.50 These cute mini pies were filled with mincemeat containing apricot, glacé cherries, almonds and brandy. You could taste the butter in the pastry and it was nicely baked and not overly sweet, but the filling lacked flavour.
£2 Festive-looking with a snowflake design. Laced with brandy these are a generous size, quite deep and well filled. Pastry was a bit too soft but the filling was lovely and spicy with a slight alcoholic aftertaste.
£2.99 These look homemade with a variation in colour as though they are fresh from the oven. They feel like a mini pork pie. Packed with a rich, fruit filling with light, crisp pastry. A winner.
£2 These look very festive with a cut-out star pattern and dusting of icing sugar. Delicious melt in the mouth pastry with a tasty, spicy filling. You can really taste the Christmas brandy. Room for one more...
Royal Iced Rich Fruit Cake (serves 18)
£7.50 Described as hand decorated but very plain with just swirled royal white icing on top. The cake was quite fruity, but not very moist. We could taste the marzipan but the icing was very sweet and quite dry and powdery. Tasted as boring as it looked.
Top Iced Fruit Cake (serves 14)
£5 Small and plain with a simple holly design, this tasted better than it looked, There was no real kick of booze but it was a pleasant enough fruit cake. Icing was a bit too thick but it had a good layer of marzipan. It’s a solid cake and good value for the price.
Luxury Christmas Cake (serves 16)
£7.50 Palm oil free, first impressions were underwhelming as it looked quite plain with just a gold tree in the centre. But looks can be deceptive and this was one of our favourites. A lovely moist, sticky fruit cake and the best tasting marzipan out of all the cakes we tried.
Deluxe Luxury All Over Iced Christmas Cake (serves 16)
£6.49
Festive edible gold pattern on top and a fruit cake infused with cognac which you could taste. A lot of fruit and some nuts, very flavoursome with a perfect blance of marzipan-to-icing ratio.
Shimmering Iced Christmas Cake (serves 12)
£7 A glistening iced top with holly pattern made it look very festive. The cake was a bit dry with not much flavour, as if it had not been matured long enough. Good strongtasting marizpan though and nice icing, not too thick.
Golden Shimmer Tree Cake (serves 22)
£20 Beautifully festive-looking cake with swirls of gold dots and three cone-shaped glittery fondant trees, this would grace any dinner table. We couldn’t really taste any brandy but it was a nice moist fruitcake with smooth icing and a thin layer of marzipan.
Richly Fruited Christmas Cake (serves 18)
A deliciously dense and fruity cake, you could smell the spice and brandy, and taste it too. Topped with nuts, marzipan stars and crunchy demerara sugar. A Christmas cracker.
Falling Leaves Iced Fruit Cake (serves 18)
£16
£15 Looks very festive with edible golden acorns, fir cones and leaves on top. The rich fruit cake was packed with vine fruits, almonds, glacé cherries, citrus peel. Not much of a boozy kick but nice and moist with generous lumps of fruit. Soft, sweet icing.
Specially Selected Luxury Iced Christmas Cake (serves 16)
£11.99 Containing almonds and hazelnuts, this was quite nutty, tasting more like a Dundee than a rich fruit cake. Icing was brittle and hard to cut into. The cake had a strong hit of marzipan but not of the Grand Dauphine liqueur.
The Best Poinsettia Christmas Cake (serves 22)
£12 Topped with a shimmering gold poinsettia and fondant leaves, this looked very pretty. It was a lovely moist and dense cake and very fruity. You could smell the alcohol but not really taste it but it was still a good cake with soft icing and a reasonable balance of marzipan.