Mr Kipling's Exceedingly Good Mince Pies

Lets start this year's reviews with the nations best selling mince pie. However, despite this accolade it has never been a pie that has been at the top of my pie list, but does this years edition change that?

I feel the need, the need for PIE!

The Facts.

As the box says this is a "butter enriched pastry with a mincemeat filling, baked with a sprinkling of sugar." They boast about having 100% natural flavours, no artificial colours and are all baked in Britain with 100% British wheat flour. At 253 calories and 9.2g of fat per pie, it is about average for a mince pie. 
Mr Kipling says you can microwave or oven heat this pie (but oven heating is always better).

First Impressions

Well, this is a sight for sore mince pies! It looks like a well stuffed and large mince pie. The Christmas tree on top is a nice festive touch. There is a small amount of sugar sprinkled on the lid, not enough to taste it, but it's there. The edges of the pie are well browned and at some places around the pie it had broken off. This is expected during transport but it happened as I was taking the pie out of the tray. The pie is well cooked and looks like it would have a crispy bite to it.

 The Bite

The first bite was as expected, the pastry is crumbly but not too much so that the pie falls apart in your hand or that the lid of the pie comes apart. It stays intact. Mr Kipling have stated that their pie has 11% of butter in it and you can taste it.

You can see from my picture that there is a gap between the mince and the roof of the pie. I thought I was short changed on the mince front, but according to Mr Kipling there is 48% of filling in the pie. I have given it the benefit of the doubt (It was far too late to be getting the scales out) and put the gap above to the fact that it does appear to be a large mince pie and maybe a fully stuffed one might have been a bit too much.

The mince itself is not bad. If memory serves, this was usually where a Mr Kipling pie fell down. You can see the individual fruit they have used so have not simply pureed it all together. I could even taste a small lemon peel which surprised me  and resulted in the next couple minutes being spent scouring through the exceedingly long ingredients list to check if my taste buds were right (they were). The mince is not too sweet, but I would have preferred it to have a little more moisture.

Overall

The pastry to mince ratio is roughly the same which is how I like it. The pastry is a little crispy but will not crumble into pieces on the first bite. The mince is decent, but nothing spectacular. The pie is a tad dry for me.

This is not a bad mince pie at all, a great improvement from previous years and a worthy contender for this year's crown.

2.5 / 5