The humble mince pie isn’t quite a full dessert, nor is it your casual snack. A festive dessert spread often includes the likes of a chocolatey Yule log, flaming Christmas pudding and a pyramid of profiteroles, while the mince pie often serves as a post-dessert treat, alongside a warming cup of tea and a game of cards by a roaring fire.
This is not to say that the mince pie isn’t an incredibly important element of festive food preparation. Indeed, no home is complete during the festive season without at least one box of the shortcrust pastry-covered, spiced and fruity creations. When we talk about decking the halls, we mean stocking up your freezer with dozens of supermarket pies before the clock strikes midnight on December 1.
Much like hot cross buns, we may only consume this festive treat during the months of December (November too, at a push). Indeed, the reason we eat hot cross buns over Easter is pretty clear, but what exactly are the origins of mince pies, and do they actually have mincemeat in them?
The long and short of it is no, they don’t actually contain mincemeat – vegetarians can safely scoff as many mince pies as they desire over Christmas. However, as you may well have guessed, the sweet shortcrust dessert hasn’t been named as such for no reason at all.
First served during the Middle Ages, the mince pie included familiar ingredients such as brandy-soaked raisins, sultanas, currants and sugar. However, they were traditionally encased in a suet, which is a type of saturated fat made from the raw, hard fat of beef, lamb or mutton. Yikes. What’s more, they only became round until after the Reformation.
As for why we enjoy mince pies over Christmas, mince pies were traditionally realised in a rectangular shape to represent the manger and were crafted with 13 ingredients to represent Jesus and his disciples. The spices were included to represent the three wise men, while mincemeat was included as an ode to the shepherds. The meaty filling was dropped by the Victorian period, though suet was still used in the pastry.
Naturally, our modern sweet tooths have resulted in a significant adjustment of the Christmas snack over time, and the inclusion of real mincemeat and suet has thankfully become obsolete. This change, however, hasn’t stopped supermarkets and pâtissiers from experimenting with recipes and fillings to put their own stamp on the classic pie.
Each year, we’re met with a wave of new mince pie creations, as well as iterations of the classic recipe in various sizes. Here at ES Best, we believe it is our duty to taste-test each and every mince pie that we come across. Keep scrolling for this year’s verdicts so far.
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Waitrose No.1 Brown Butter Mince Pies with Cognac
Featuring a beautifully crisp and browned top, this glorious mince pie can be bitten into without cupping a hand underneath your chin to catch the inevitable crumbling bits of pastry. Delightfully sweet and free from any too-bitter currant taste, the mincemeat filling consists of apricots, glacé Amarena cherries and almonds laced with Cognac.
Though not the most traditional filling, these pies have us beginning to think that we should remove the inclusion of currants, berries and sultanas from mince pies for good. Such is the spell that this entirely perfect pie has cast. The sprinkling of sugar over the top is a lovely touch which adds an extra bit of crunch, and something we wish was mandatory for all mince pies. What’s more, the slightly nutty, browned-butter shortcrust pastry safely makes these our top pick for 2023.
Buy now £4.00, Waitrose
Patisserie Valerie Mince Pies 6 Pack
We're always slightly weary of larger mince pies as they tend to be overfilled with an overly dry pastry which imbues the pie with a chalky texture. Shockingly, this was the exact opposite of what occurred with these sizeable mince pies from Patisserie Valerie.
We were astounded as we sampled what we believed was going to be shortcrust pastry. Instead, we were treated to what was actually essentially a large piece of buttery shortbread moulded into the shape of a classic mince pie with a pretty six-point star and dusting of sugar on top.
We love that these pies don't necessarily have to be heated up to enjoy, as they are slightly more biscuity in texture. The filling is smooth and strikes the perfect balance between sweet and tart. These were our favourite pies so far.
Buy now £14.96, Patisserie Valerie
Tesco Finest All Butter Pastry Mince Pies
Tesco immediately scores points for the lovely, festive snowflake imprint atop each of the all-butter pastry mince pies. The outer tips of the starry pie are gloriously browned, while the middle is slightly stodgier. We nevertheless didn’t find that we needed a glass of milk to wash it down.
Though Tesco describes these mince pies as ‘decadent’, we actually found that the mincemeat filling was neither too overpowering nor overly rich. Made up of vine fruits, glacé cherries, infused French brandy and ruby port and topped off with some lemon zest, tangerine oil and festive spices, we were surprised to find the most prevalent flavour was that of the cherries. The pastry-to-filling ratio is pretty fantastic, and the sugar dusting provides a lovely festive finish. A noble runner-up.
Buy now £3.00, Tesco
DukesHill St Clements Mince Pies
The St Clements mince pies from Dukeshill have a delightfully hand-crafted feel with a delicately braided rim. These citrus-heavy pies were created to meet customer demand for extra orange and lemon peel to cut through the richness of the brandy-soaked mincemeat.
They are surprisingly shallow, which we are not necessarily complaining about because the filling is so incredibly tart that it’s nice to have a thicker, heftier serving of pastry to temper it. These unique, artisan pies won’t be for everyone, but they’ll certainly help to treat a case of scurvy. Sailors rejoice.
Buy now £13.50, DukesHill
Cook Mini Mince Pies
Adorably small and perfect with a cup of tea, we enjoyed these mini mince pies – but we wouldn’t class them as real mince pies. This isn’t because of the size, but simply because the taste and texture made us think we were eating a Jammie Dodger. There isn’t much else to say on this iteration, they are quite literally just strangely deformed jammy treats.
Buy now £4.95, Cook
Sainsbury’s Mince Pies with All Butter Pastry, Taste the Difference
We certainly tasted 'the difference' with these mince pies from Sainsbury's, but not for good reason. The brandy-infused mincemeat tastes unbelievably alcoholic, and we’d definitely be hiding these treats from children during festive celebrations. We are surprised we didn’t feel slightly tipsy after just one bite, and the bitter taste overpowered any memory of the overall taste of the filling. Maybe they did make us tipsy after all. Sorry, Sainsbury’s – maybe next year.
Buy now £2.75, Sainsbury’s
F&M Christmas Traditional Mince Pies
We have a few qualms with the F&M classic mince pies. Firstly, they’re so large that they resemble muffins more than the traditional festive treat. Though they score some points for the festive dusting of sugar, the pastry-to-filling ratio simply doesn’t do it for us. There’s too much mincemeat (which contains far too many squishy whole sultanas), and too thin of a pastry casing. Though we haven’t tried them, we imagine the smaller Petit Fours mince pies would be more to our liking for size alone.
Buy now £12.95, F&M
Specially Selected Caramelised Apple Crumble Mince Tarts 265g/6 Pack
Looking for something more exciting than the traditional mince pie? Aldi is making a convincing case to throw out the timeold recipe once and for all.
Fear not, for despite the promise of an apple crumble mince, there remain some classic elements in this recipe. This pie scores immediate points for a smooth filling disrupted only by delicious pieces of cinnamon apple. Indeed, the crumble topping is the best part of any crumble, so we appreciated the hefty sprinkling of spiced crumbly pastry on the top.
Our one qualm, however, was the result of those extra-large crumbly pieces, which made the overall treat quite dry. We did feel the need to wash this pie down with a glass of milk. But, all in all, a solid alternative option from Aldi.
Buy now £2.49, Aldi
Verdict
Without a shadow of a doubt, Waitrose’s No.1 Brown Butter Mince Pies with Cognac are the taste-tested mince pie winner for Christmas 2023, tied with Patisserie Valerie Mince Pies.
