The Boxed Off team have been up to some very important business this festive season. Last year we “Boxed Off Christmas” by doing a round-up of the best supermarket mince pies around. The unparalleled winner of this was Iceland with their Luxury range scoring 4.5/5.
Since we all know that Iceland won the battle of the Christmas ads this year, we felt it was only right to see if their culinary efforts also came out on top.
We took a new selection of pies to sample, including the Iceland Luxury range, and did some detailed research into which was the best.
The sampled pies were from Iceland, Waitrose, Asda, Morrisons and Aldi.
5th place: Asda
Unappetising to look at, even the box paled in comparison to the rest of our selection. A lazy crust revealed a thick and overly sweet filling that was fit to burst with crunchy and overpowering raisins. One member of the team was unable to even finish theirs; unsurprising, really, thanks to the unpleasant pastry that became thick and claggy once you took a bite.
A real shame as these pies seem to have scored highly in other reviews. We gave this 2/5.
4th place: Waitrose
In all honesty, the Waitrose pies were doomed from the beginning as our mince pie elf accidentally bought puff pastry pies that needed heating up in the oven. Nevertheless, we powered through and sampled the pies and found them to be considerably better than we’d expected. Appearance-wise, the puff pastry let it down and the sprinkling of granulated sugar wasn’t brilliant, but the pie itself had a delicious flavour and great consistency.
Perhaps a little unfair as proper cooking instructions were not followed, but we were unable to score this higher than 3/5
3rd place: Aldi
The Aldi pies look tantalizingly tasty thanks to their attractive star design, lightly baked pastry and delicate sugar dusting. The pastry was nice and crumbly and paired remarkably well with a decent cup of tea. The only downside to this pie was the filling, which proved to be extremely citrusy and rather detracted from the classic mince pie flavour we all know and love. The filling was generous but unfortunately the plump, chewy raisins and overbearing orange flavour let it down.
Don’t let 3rd place put you off Aldi’s offering, these pies would certainly look attractive at a festive buffet and the citrus edge may be more palatable to others. Overall, we awarded them: 4/5
2nd place: Iceland
Yes, you read that correctly. We’d have loved to have awarded 1st place to Iceland for the second year running, particularly after our admiration for their Christmas ad, but their pies just got pipped at the post. Equally delicious as last year, these pies boast an attractive star design, a decent dusting of sugar and a light and crumbly pastry. The filling is that of a classic mince pie and there is a pleasant after taste of brandy (so you get a little Christmas tipple in there, too)
We love Iceland and what they stand for and we really do love their mince pies too, but our winner just managed to overtake them in the league table. We give Iceland 4.5/5
1st place: Morrisons
Morrisons came out of nowhere and took first place after being unanimously coined as ‘delicious’ by the team. The pastry and the filling were both great, with the filling standing out as being of traditional mincemeat flavouring, with a decent ratio of jam to currants. We couldn’t find fault with this pie and would urge anyone looking for a mince pie fix to head over there and give these ones a try!
After A LOT of munching and countless cups of tea, this is our clear winner. With nothing to criticise, the winner of the Boxed Off Mince Pie Roundup 2018 is Morrisons!
Merry Christmas from the team at Boxed Off!