Oh, these are good! They’re solid things – heavy enough to use as an offensive weapon if death by pastry is your thing – and flat-bottomed, without the traditional foil case. The pastry is a bit over-salted (Tesco’s mince pie team have a heavy hand with the salt), but the mincemeat is tasty, with lots of raisins and not too much peel, and the crumble topping adds an interesting new texture. I’m not sure I’d want to eat them cold, but served warm with ice cream they were really delicious. The only ones in the taste test that I have ordered again, and thus our winner.

They definitely smell of rum, but the flavour (and texture) is dominated by candied citrus peel, which I’m not a fan of even though it’s been cooked for long enough that it doesn’t trigger my citrus allergy. The ‘raisin’ part seems to go without saying: there are always raisins in mince pies, are there not? Overall, though, I like them and would order them again.

A bit awkward, size-wise: they’re slightly too big for one bite (at least in polite company – you could probably get away with it in the privacy of your own kitchen!) but too small for two. Also, the pastry is very short, which makes the pies nice to eat but results in a snow of crumbs and icing sugar when removing them from the foil case and when taking a bite. The mincemeat is way better than the standard Tesco mince pies, with a nice, not too spiced flavour and containing actual raisins.

These were the ones I thought were least Christmassy, but on reflection I guess there’s a link to lebkuchen, the German festive cookies I find so irresistible. But with added marshmallow, because apparently they weren’t sweet enough without it. And they are very sweet, tasting mostly of the chocolate icing that’s both on top of and inside the little tarts. There’s candied ginger in there which gives a bit of residual back-of-the-throat heat, but mostly it’s lots of sugary sweet softness – like glacé icing – inside a slightly firmer pastry shell. I’m not sure if I like them or not, but they’re way too sweet for me to have a second one to try and form a definite opinion. They’re different, anyway.

ETA, about a week later: on second attempt I liked them more: the ginger seemed stronger and they taste more like lebkuchen than Tesco’s lebkuchen do. I don’t think I can do half stars on WordPress, so they’ get four stars but please read it as three and a half.

I really wanted to like these: I love frangipane, I love mince pies, so the two together should be great. The frangipane topping is very nice – dense and almondy with crunchy flaked almonds on top. The mince pie bit is fine – decent pastry that’s not too crumbly to eat tidily and and good quality mincemeat, albeit only in a very small amount. Together they’re just not right: frangipane and spiced raisins apparently aren’t a perfect match. I’d eat them again, though, as an interesting alternative to a classic mince pie.

You’d think that these would be pretty much identical to the plain puff pastry mince pies, but these are actually quite a bit better. There’s less of the very dry puff pastry and more mincemeat, and the tops are properly crunchy with sugar crystals. I’m still planning on leaving the rest for mum, but they’re not bad.

These are OK. There’s far too much very dry puff pastry and far too little mincemeat for my taste, although the mincemeat seemed to have more fruit content than the shortcrust pastry ones. They’re pleasant enough with cream or ice cream, but overall not one I would go for if there was another option. Mum liked them enough to eat the other three in the box, though, so they can’t be all bad!

I thought I would like these best of all the mince pies I was going to try, expecting familiarity to win over novelty. They’re actually a sad disappointment: the pastry is pasty, under-baked and overly salty. The mincemeat is single-note sweet, mostly gloop with very few raisins. I’ll still eat the rest of the pack, because even bad mince pies are better than no mince pies, but they’re definitely not very merry.

These should be good: chocolate and hazelnut is known to be a great combination, so what could go wrong? I really don’t know, but something has. The frangipane is dense, and in some of the tarts has a more liquid layer that might be an attempt at something like Nutella or might just be not-quite-cooked cake batter. They don’t taste particularly of chocolate or hazelnut, but do have a hint of something like bubblegum, with an unpleasant bitterness at the end. The decent pastry can’t save them: these are just nasty.