Every brand has a sell out festive item they bring out year after year and since the early 2000s, Greggs have been treating pastry fans to the Festive Bake.
Filled with Christmas flavours, the bake is a limited edition treat and will disappear again once the season is over. The original Festive Bake now has a companion with a vegan version launching in 2021 to much fanfare.
Greggs' vegan line has been very successful so it's no surprise that the festive bake has been given a vegan makeover - although faced with the two it was notable that the vegan option looked a little deflated and pale compared to the original.
Even if you cut out the bacon and chicken, there's still plenty to love about the festive bake so we decided to pit the two bakes against each other to see if a vegan option could topple the beloved meat filled pastry.
Festive Bake - 8/10
★★★★★★★★
£1.80
Confession time - I am a lifelong fan of the Festive Bake. I truly believe it is an elite item from the Greggs menu and feel it's loss every January when it vanishes from shelves.
Greggs describe the bake as "filled with pieces of cooked chicken, sage & onion stuffing and cooked sweetcure bacon, covered in a creamy sage & cranberry sauce."
This year, the bakery have advertised a new recipe for this bake but I can't tell a major difference from previous year's batches.
Gregg's Festive Bake, ultimately, tastes like Christmas. From the familiar sage and onion stuffing overtones to chicken chunks contained within.
Fickle cranberry sauce, which is often underwhelming or overpowering, is at the perfect ratio so you can taste it but not too much it wipes out other flavours.
The only thing that lets this down is the way the filling can clump to one side, leaving you with mouthfuls of pastry and the messiness of the food.
It is a true Christmas staple - the Festive Bake even looks seasonal with it's golden brown pastry speckled with crumbs and seasoning.
Vegan Festive Bake - 5/10
★★★★★
£1.80
My expectations were high for this bake as I really enjoy the vegan sausage roll on occasion so I know the pastry is good - couldn't help feeling slightly let down.
The flavour profile is shockingly different and lacks that clear signifier that this is a Christmas inspired bake. It's hard to determine exactly what that is without stating the obviously missing meat but removing this throws balance of other flavours off.
Greggs say the vegan festive bake is "filled with savoury flavour Quorn™ mycoprotein pieces, sage & onion stuffing balls and vegan bacon crumb, wonderfully finished with a mouth-watering sage & cranberry sauce."
In the first bite the overwhelming flavour is the fruity cranberry with a slight floral tinge before the stuffing comes through. The Quorn might as well not be in the bake for all the flavour it gives as sauces and stuffing reign supreme.
The pastry is a bit lacklustre in colour and without the seasoning on top it looks a little bit sad but holds together better than the original non-vegan version.
While the bake is nice and gives all the trimmings of a roast, it misses the mark on replicating that instant Christmas taste putting sauce over substance. If I had never had the original, this would be an acceptable bake but the Vegan Festive Bake cannot hold a candle to the original.
