Tag: Mince pies

Blogmas Day Nineteen: Mince Pie taste testing 🥧

Only 6 days to go guys! Less than a week 🎄

During December, me and my friend at work have been trying out different mince pies. We work together two days so on a Monday I would bring one in and on a Thursday she would bring one in.

We got to try six different mince pies during this time, and we rated them to see which ones we preferred.

We tried the following Mince Pies:

  • Aldi Specially Selected
  • Gregg’s Bakery
  • Sainsburys Shortcrust Bakery
  • M&S Puff Pastry
  • Waitrose Extra Special
  • Co op Locally Sourced

• The Rankings •

We went for a few categories to score each mince pie on, these were:

  • Appearance
  • Overall Taste
  • Pastry
  • Fillage

And then we gave them an overall taste each.

• The Results •

Aldi Specially Selected

Appearence: 9/10 & 8/10

Overall taste: 7/10 & 7/10

Pastry: 7/10 & 7/10

Fillage: 8/10 & 7/10

Overall Rating: 7/10 & 7/10

Gregg’s

Appearance: 8/10 & 8/10

Overall taste: 5/10 & 7/10

Pastry: 6/10 & 7/10

Fillage: 8/10 & 7/10

Overall rating: 5/10 & 6/10

Sainsburys Bakery

Appearence: 8/10 & 8/10

Overall taste: 8/10 & 8/10

Pastry: 9/10 & 9/10

Fillage: 5/10 & 5/10

Overall rating: 8.5/10 & 9/10

M&S Puff Pastry

Appearence: 6/10 & 6/10

Overall taste: 6.5/10 & 8/10

Pastry: 5/10 & 3/10

Fillage: 3/10 & 3/10

Overall rating: 6/10 & 7/10

Waitrose

Appearence: 8/10 & 8/10

Overall taste: 9/10 & 6/10

Pastry: 8.5/10 & 8/10

Fillage: 8/10 & 8/10

Overall rating: 8/10 & 8/10

Co-op Locally Sourced

Appearence: 6/10 & 6/10

Overall taste: 10/10 & 10/10

Pastry: 8/10 & 9/10

Fillage: 10/10 & 9/10

Overall rating: 9.5/10 & 9/10

So, the winner of our taste testing was… (drum roll please)

The Co-op Locally Sourced !

These are my favourite and even with trying others that hasn’t changed, and my friend agreed too.

Which Mince pies are your favourite?

Have you tried any of these ones?

Until Next Time,

Roseanne 🙂

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Blogmas 2019 Day Seventeen: Mini Mince Pies.

Hi guys!

I thought it was time for another recipe as I’ve only done one so far this festive blogmas season.

Check that out: Pretzel Reindeer treats

Plus, the mince pie obsession has well and truly returned.

So, I thought I would have a go at making my own mini ones. These are Perfect for a little treat.

These are super easy and super quick!

What you will need:

•Jar of mince meat

•Shortcrust ready roll pastry (Chilled)•Small circle cutter•Small star cutter•Low cal spray•Baking tray•Parchment paper

Optional Extra:

Caramel

What you will need to do:

•Line your baking tray with the parchment paper.

•Pre heat your oven to 180° C

•Lay out your pastry and cut into two.

•Use half of the pastry to cut out your circle bases and half with stars for the tops.

•Place the circles into the baking tray with a little space between them.

•Spoon a generous amount of mince meat into the centre of each circle.

•Optional: Top the mince meat with your extra flavouring (Terry’s choc orange segment or blob of caramel)

•Lift up the edges of the circles a little so that when they cook the mince meat doesnt all pour out.

•Top with one of your cut out pastry stars.

•Spray with your low cal spray/egg wash/milk. Anything that will give it that lovely golden brown finish.

• Pop into the oven until they are golden brown.

•Enjoy warm or cold.

The cool thing is I made these for my husband to take to work as part of his bake off competition and we won!! Whoop whoop 🙌🏻🙌🏻 Bake off winners.

So, they are definatly worth a try.

Let me know if you have a go at making these or if you make any other Christmassy treats.

8 days until Christmas 🎄

Ho Ho Ho

Roseanne 🎅🏻

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Blogmas Day 10: Mini mince pie pastry bites

This is my first foodie post of Blogmas 2018 and it’s a tasty recipe for all you mince pie fans!

I have developed a real love of mince pies over this recent festive season but as I follow the SW plan I’m trying to find ways to enjoy my favourite festive treats and stay on plan (ready for the inevitable over indulgence on the main days of Christmas)

So, this recipe, although SW friendly is still great for anyone looking for a twist on a classic, a bite sized treat of Christmassy goodness that won’t add to the waistline as heavily as a traditional mince pie might.

This recipe uses Light puff pastry, so a bit different to the traditional short crust.

It is so simple, and those recipes are the best kind.

Ingredients

-One roll of Tesco light puff pastry (Not frozen)

– A jar of Tesco Mincemeat

-One egg, beaten. (To egg wash)

-Sweetner (To sprinkle)

(This post is not sponsored by Tesco but I did an online shop when I ordered these and wanted to keep it simple when working out the syn values using the Slimming World app)

Recipe

Roll out the pastry flat and cut into squares (roughly 5cm x 5cm)

I weighed each square to make sure that it was 20g each. If you aren’t on SW you won’t need to be so particular.

On each square add a teaspoon of mincemeat.

Fold over the pastry from one side to the other and crimp along the edge to stop any leakage.

Lay the back onto the baking parchment that the pastry comes in, on a bakig tray.

Beat the egg and brush over the top of each one to help them turn golden.

Sprinkle each one with a little sweetener.

Bake in the over for 10/12 minutes on 200°.

Enjoy hot or leave to cool.

I prefer them warm with a cuppa.

These work out as 5 syns each which I don’t think is too bad. One with a cuppa would be perfect to get that festive mince pie hit.

20g (ish) of light pastry 4.5 syns

1 tsp mincemeat (0.5 syn)

Total: 5 syns each.

Enjoy!

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

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Blogmas day 23: Festive baking 

This is so wierd, I planned to do my festive baking today at the beginning of the week and I got a notification today on Facebook telling me that day 22 of last year’s Blogmas was festive baking too, how wierd. So looks like Dec 22nd is Blogmas baking day! Although this year I have had to post it on the 23rd as I already had a post ready for today, anyway…

I did plan to do these in more than one post but the time has completely got away from me (seriously where has Blogmas gone?!?) and so I’m doing it all in one mega baking blog post. 

So, what’s on the menu?

  • Mini heart mince pies
  • Chocolate orange cupcakes 
  • Gingerbread men 

    First up, Mince pies! I made these using a Slimming World recipe, you can check that out here

    My little helper!

    I went for a heart on top (less festive than a star I know) as I couldn’t find my small star cutter. These still look lovely and the hearts are quite cute.

    These went down a treat in class, since these were ready and Slimming World friendly I thought I’d take them to my class that day as we were having our Christmas party. They didn’t last long at all.

    Next up, chocolate orange cupcakes!

    These were made using a Mary Berry recipe, Queen of baking who else could be better!! Check out the recipe here 

    I have to admit that I used pre made icing as I didn’t have time (or enough bowls!!) to make this too, thanks Mrs Crocker for saving me 👍

    I used the chocolate orange minis in the grab bags to pop in the middle (a yummy, gooey surprise) and to decorate on top of the cupcakes as these are a better size than the large segments of a full chocolate orange 🍊🍫 That’s just my preference but it worked really well.

    This cupcake set came from TK Maxx and was only £4.99. It comes with cupcake cases of two different designs and four different Christmas cupcake toppers. I love this cute little set! It would also make a lovely gift for any baking fans. 

    And finally, gingerbread men!

    I’ve never made these before (& to be honest my sister did most of the prep for these ones anyway) but these are soooo good and they smelt so Christmassy.

    This recipe is again from Queen Mary Bez and I found it on the BBC Good Food site (best site for cooking & baking, failsafe recipes galore!) gingerbread men recipe

    These smelt amazing and taste so yummy. From this recipe they are a tasty mix of a shortbread biscuit with a yummy taste of ginger to them. If you wanted to have a stronger flavoured biscuit I’d recommend adding more ginger and the cinnamon to add that spice. I didn’t add the cinnamon to mine as I hate the stuff, yuk.

    I really liked how these looked when they were done so I didn’t add any decoration to them but you could pipe on detailing or add sweets for buttons and features if you wanted to.

    Noah was such a good little helper and he loved rolling out the doughs and cutting out the gingerbread men (and tasting them at the end too of course)

    A fun, festive and yummy way to spend an afternoon. I can’t wait to have a cuppa at work with a gingerbread man and I’m going to serve the cupcakes at our Christmas party tommorrow!

    In my beauty advent calender today…

    A gorgeous red lipstick! 💋 I love how many different lipsticks you get with this advent, it’s perfect for starting a lipstick collection & since I only really had liquid lipsticks before this has been great for me. I’ve found a new love for creme lipsticks throughout December! I’ll definatly be wearing them more often now.

    Here’s a swatch…

    You can’t beat a festive red!

    It’s Christmas eve eve, 2 days to go! 😁

    Ho Ho Ho 

    Roseanne 🎅

     

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