Mince Pie Appreciation

Morrisons all butter: decent pastry, good fill, but slightly bland filling; not enough spice or booze coming through. 6.5/10; not bad, but one for the brandy cream treatment.

From Budgens in Ascot. Lovely but shit picture can't do justice to them. Orange flavour pastry!

1 Attachment

Took a walk up to Leith Hill tower today. Highest point in the south east. The tea hatch in the bottom had local home made mini mincers, two for a pound.

Good pastry, tasty filling, more booze needed. Also, mini mincers should be banned. Never eaten a normal pie and wished it was smaller.
#mincerwithaview #highestpieformiles

This reminds me; today, @jaeyukdapbap and I were going round an audax in the West. We stop at Pangbourne in the Café St Louis for controlling purpose and notice a sign saying "A glass of mulled wine + two mince pies for £5". We did what anybody would have done and ordered one of these for each of us. It should also be mentioned that I was carrying round a hip flask full of brandy. Always be prepared. Anyway, after having waited for ages we were rewarded with two small glasses of lukewarm mulled wine (without pieces of orange inside!) and four ridiculously tiny mincers. 2/10 would go to Costa again :/

Sad to hear Pangbourne's not mincer (or mulled wine)-friendly territory.
Will go hunting for places around here that understand what constitutes proper 'pie and report back.

These were great, found them a while back when they were on for £2.25 for four (and then extra % off again if you do the waitrose club discount thing online, name them as your "regular everyday item").

Iced mince pie is acceptable but not a thing you can find in Scotland, the whole country hates fruit inside cake like items. Means super discount Christmas puds are easy to come by though as not many other English up here. Still have about 8 good ones from last year.

Our local chippy were giving away battered mince pies on Friday. Surprised to find they were bloody excellent.

Helped a lot that it was a slightly posh/'clean' chippy so the batter was crispy and the oil wasn't a week old (I normally prefer the dirty one, but this one was walkable in the snow).

the whole country hates fruit inside cake like items.

Dundee cake?

My wife claims she is now a Mince Pie thread widow and is threatening to withdraw my mincer allowance. I can't find the contract but I'm sure there was something about '....in mince pies and in health..'. No?

#indulgent

1 Attachment

OMG. I think I'm glad that my local doesn't do these, if only for the sake of my arteries...

You only live once...the good news about reaching 60 is that every mince pie is a bonus!

According to many Scots, they only made Dundee cake as a peace offering to the invading English!

Just got a 6 box of tesco finest deeplads (my favourite new term) with cognac; really really not very good.
Dry not crisp, filling half empty and not tasty, again almost dry, defo no cognac in them lol
Would avoid

Got a pack of NISA standard and luxury. Both eye-wateringly sweet with a weird fake strawberry flavour vibe.

Still only 10 more to go and I can try something more appealing.

This concurs with my assessment. Big disappointment

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/dec/10/mince-pies-taste-test-seasonal-sensation-or-festive-flop?CMP=fb_gu#comment-109526526

Just got a 6 box of tesco finest deeplads (my favourite new term) with cognac; really really not very good.
Dry not crisp, filling half empty and not tasty, again almost dry, defo no cognac in them lol
Would avoid

Came number 1 in Guardian. I've had them, thought they were alright

CONTROVERSY in the mince world

Don't worry folks, I've got this.

There's a Tesco round the corner. I'll pop out at lunchtime, grab a six deck and settle this once and for all.

Putting the boot in a bit there; hope Tony remembers to occasionally just sit back and enjoy the simple pleasure of a mincer without overthinking it too much.

Just had a slice of home baked mince pie strudel. Conflicted.

In what way? Sounds like the kind of beautiful cross-cultural exchange that we can all get behind, man.

They do say you learn from your mistakes. This was a mistake. Mincemeat flapjacks. Overcooked. I'll stick to pastry. (I will eat the flapjacks of course)

1 Attachment

For something supposedly so easy, I find flapjacks surprisingly tricky to get right - the window between 'sticky' mush and 'slab of concrete' is quite narrow.