It's that time of year again when you can't walk down a supermarket aisle without stumbling across a pile of mince pies. There's a much wider variety in stores these days, with toppings and flavours of every kind. But it's the traditional basic mince pie that retailers tend to sell most of, especially when so many people are shopping on a budget.
That's why we decided to compare the cheapest mince pies with a blind taste test from each supermarket, including Aldi, Asda, Tesco, Lidl, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and M&S. Read more: B&M shoppers say exclusive Galaxy Luxury Chocolate Hamper is 'my kind of box' On appearance alone the majority look pretty similar, a small deep pie with an crimped edging to the crust and various snowflake, leaf and star patterns on the top. 1) Aldi 2) Morrisons 3) M&S 4) Asda 5) Tesco 6) Lidl 7) Sainsbury's (Image: Manchester Family / MEN) The ones from Sainsbury's and M&S are wider than the others and have a top that covers the whole pie, the M&S ones featuring an open star in the centre of each pie.
Aldi's and Morrisons' were a little bit more browned off than the others, giving them both a firmer top. Lidl's had the softest pastry of the lot, but that didn't go down well with all of our testers, so it depends what you prefer. Nobody really liked the Sainsbury's pies, as the pastry was a little too dry and crumbly and the filling of Asda's tasted a little bland.
They're all topped with granulated rather than dusting sugar, but the amount used differs .