Currently on sale at £2.79, these pies are certainly not at the cheap end of the spectrum. It's certainly larger than your average Mr Kipling apple pie, but at £1.40 per pie, you'd expect a sizeable pie for your money. I'm not quite sure the size of this pie matches up with its price tag - so I'm hoping this pie makes up it for when I taste it.

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Waitrose Duchy Originals Organic Mince Pies review

Out of the packet, these mince pies are in excellent condition and have a lovely golden colour. The all butter pastry is obviously of high quality, as the pie feels solid in the hand and unlikely to disintegrate like cheaper mince pies. The pastry is crispy, crunchy and yummy.


Slicing open the pie, there is a noticeable air gap. I therefore felt these pies needed a bit more mincemeat filling, especially for the price paid. The mincemeat is fruity and tangy, and complements the pastry well. This pie is really delicious, and goes well with some vanilla custard (which is needed as I felt the pie was a little dry otherwise). I would buy them again, even if they are a bit of an extravagant expense.

Waitrose Duchy Originals Organic Mince Pies
Score: 5.65/7 - Pierate recommended
TJP

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The Ship's Cook (aka @the_cookworm) is currently on a pie mission - to find the top rated pie recipes from our nations supermarket suggestions. It started with a tweet we were sent by @jimbolimbo9 suggesting we try two pork pastry recipes from the supermarket Morrisons and from this The Ship's Cook decided to select one reci-pie from each supermarket's website or magazine to make and rate. Today is the turn of Waitrose Black Pudding pie!

Here is a little-known fact about me: I absolutely LOVE black pudding. I love it so much that I have been known to order items from a restaurant menu that contain black pudding even though I don’t like the other ingredients. So when I spotted this black pudding pie recipe on the Waitrose website, I couldn’t resist making it the second instalment in my supermarket recipe series. 

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Out of the oven, the pie is a lovely golden brown colour. There's no boil-out, unlike its top-crust counterpart, so the pie is in good condition.


Cracking open the pie, however, reveals that it is lacking in real structural integrity. Despite picking a sharp knife, cutting this pie open for the cross-section means it just collapses on itself, oozing its red wine gravy out over the plate. It's therefore hard to fully ascertain the extent of the air-gap in this pie, but I could still see that this pie was not entirely filled to capacity.


The content was tasty - the gravy in particular was delicious and rich, and the meat was nice and tender. I could have done with a bit more steak in the pie, however.

At £2, this is a decent price for what was a quality pie. It's by no means the cheapest supermarket pie, however, but you could do worse.

While this pie may have collapsed when I tried to cut it (meaning it would be hard to pick up and eat with your hands), you can still clearly see it is vastly superior to it's lesser top-crust cousin. Fully-encased is always the way to go. Case closed.

Steak, Mushroom & Red Wine Pie
Score: 5.4 / 7
TJP

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The final day of British Pie Week aimed to cap off a fine week of pie consumption for Pierateer RAS by also celebrating National Butchers Week, which happened to coincide with British Pie Week (4^th to 10^th March 2013). Having already picked up a pork pie from his local butchers, Berry Bros in Selly Oak (Birmingham), he was set to give the local produce a rating. We’ve no doubt all heard about the various controversies in the news about supermarket meat produce not always being what it was labelled as, so I was assured to get straight to the source (or at least as close as possible!) buy going to my local butchers for pie, who informed me that it was a local farm seller who produced the pork pies they sold.

However before I review, let me just point out that the final couple of Morrisons Apple Pies went down a treat on Sunday, having one for breakfast and then another to celebrate the end of a fantastic Yonex All England Badminton Championships in Birmingham, hosted once again by Badminton England.

PIE REVIEW:
Have a butchers at this: Would it be a Berry good pie?

Going to your local butchers, you hope to have a bit more confidence in getting exactly what it says on the tin, or in the case of this pork pie from Berry Bros in Selly Oak, exactly what is says on the sticker! Unfortunately it didn’t have anything on the sticker, but I was assured this was a locally sourced pork pie from a farmer near the Birmingham area.

The pork pie itself was golden brown, a little soft pastry-wise in places but still nice and fresh. The meat was on the whole very nice, not too grisly but a tad spicy (certainly left a bit of a kick after eating it, unlike some other pork pies I have tried recently). There was also certainly a layer of jelly around the cured meat in the pie, which I wasn’t too fond of but I recognise some pork pie fans would have enjoyed. All in all, a nice and fresh pie option from Berry Bros, but just a shame that they don’t sell meat-in-gravy pies too. I’m Berry disappointed as their pork pies are nice!

Berry Bros Butchers Pork Pie
Score: 4.0/7 (RAS)

So there we have it for Pierateer RAS: seven days, twenty pies and a whole lot of pastry boosted calories! Still, it was worth every second of it! More reviews to come, but for now, I hope everyone had a great British Pie Week and look forward to reviewing more next March!

RAS Pie Count Day Seven: 3
RAS BPW Total: 20

SJL started day seven with another Co-op Apple Pie and a cup of tea for pre-breakfast. A trip to Waitrose the day before meant lunch was planned. A Waitrose Essentials Beef & Onion pie in the same shallow shape the same as the 50p Asda ones reviewed on Day Three and Day Five. This pie cost a fair bit more at 89p but this meant that it contained a whopping 20% meat. The soft puff pastry was very much the same as the Asda ones. The extra meat certainly made a difference and the filling was more noticeable, but not much more. It didn't justify it's extra price tag and so sadly this pie will be left languishing in the bottom of the pie rate rankings. Not bad, but not great for the price and certainly not recommended to bother buying if at all possible. It tasted very similar to a Pukka Pie only not as good. It is interesting but not perhaps surprising to note that the Waitrose cheapest range is more expensive than the Asda standard range and also slightly better.

Later in the day to celebrate the end of British pie week SJL embarked on some pie baking. This time he opted for a much more normal type of pie in the form of a chicken and chorizo pie. The technique adopted was to boil the whole chicken for some hour and half with some onion, celery and seasoning. This made the meat nice and soft and also provided some stock for the filling. The stock was mixed with some fried chorizo and white sauce and a pie filling was born. Gluten free pastry was made especially for the pie. While this tends to be more crumbly and the texture isn't quite as good the taste is fine and the pastry did a fine job of containing the filling. All in all we were quite happy with this pie and the time put into it's preparation was worth it. There was also plenty of pie left over to ensure that while British Pie Week might have come to an end the pie consumption certainly has not.




Waitrose Essentials - Beef & Onion - 3.17

SJL Pie Count Day Seven: 3
SJL BPW Total: 24

Day Seven Total: 6
British Pie Week Total: 50

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Heston from Waitrose Puff Pastry Mince Pie Review

When supermarkets get in the big guns – and I’m talking BIG BIG, such as celebrity chefs like Heston Blumenthal - you immediately expect big things. It’s only natural! A top chef by trade, Heston can be seen Blum-ing everywhere! Which is no bad thing as the reviews of his produce are normally top notch. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here... you can read reviews of Heston’s recipes or books wherever you want, but if you want to know about his pies then you need to be on the home of the pie review - www.pierate.co.uk! It’s just that simple!

So when I heard some glowing reviews of Heston for Waitrose mince pies from last year, I had to get my hands on a box (or two) for our '12 Pies of Christmas’ video and naturally submit a review on Pierate. I picked up the Puff Pastry Mince Pies from a Little Waitrose in Birmingham (which will only feature externally in the “12 Pies of Christmas” video, as the media team at Waitrose never replied to my email about filming in store). At £2.73 per box of 6 (that’s 45.5ppp), they seemed rather pricey but I was hoping they’d live up to the cost.


Heston from Waitrose Puff Pastry Mince Pies

I opened the box to find the six pies alongside a packet of pine sugar, something I’d not come across before. It did suggest on the packet to warm the mince pies up slightly before sprinkling on the pine sugar but as we were doing our “mince pie rating demo” with mince pies straight from the box, a sprinkle of pine sugar was added to the cold pie. The first impression – I have to admit – was “Have I just been given a mince pie box with sausage rolls in?!” For I don’t know about you, but the shape of these pies did not look like any mince pies I’d ever seen before! However this in and of itself would not detract from the scoring of the pie per se, as the filling was still fully encased in pastry with clearly defined base, sides and lid.

A quick bite into the pie and I could immediately tell this pie hadn’t quite got the pastry:filling ratio right in my opinion. The first bite was pretty much all pastry and unfortunately the cross section tells its own story with too much pastry on the sides, top and bottom. Some may also query why this pie had a puff pastry lid to, as this isn’t usually the pastry use for mince pies, but I didn’t have a problem with that. I though the puff pastry tasted quite nice and a good alternative to the typical short crust, but it was a little dry and the amount of pastry made it a bit chewy.



Heston from Waitrose Puff Pastry Mince Pies

The mincemeat itself tasted nice, with a strong fruity flavour included in the recipe. The content was nice and fruity, however it was clear that there wasn’t really enough of it when you ate the pie. The pine sugar to add to the top didn’t really do anything special for me either, however fancy it sounded to be adding it. Ultimately I’d rather have a well filled pie (which the puff pastry lid didn’t really provide due to a reasonable air gap) than a fancy pie sprinkled with pine sugar. While I’m sure Heston’s mince pies will be a talking point around many a Christmas table this year, for the price involved and the ratio of pastry:filling it certainly isn’t the highest scoring mince pie, despite the big name.

Heston from Waitrose Puff Pastry Mince Pie
Score: 4.89/7
[Colour 6, Capacity 4.75, Consistency 4.5, Condition 5.5, Chewiness 5.5, Cheapness 3, Content 5, Total: 4.89/7]
RAS

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Waitrose even know that the top crust pie is the inferior product to the fully-encased pie - that's surely why they've put it in the name, so you can avoid disappointment later!


Out of the oven, the pie does look fairly nice. It has attained a nice golden brown complexion, and the puff pastry has lived up to its name. However it is let down by the boil out on the left hand side of the pie. Boil out, of course, that's resulted from this being just a top-crust pie. If this pie had the correct infrastructure (sides and a base), there wouldn't be gravy dribbling down the outside of the casing.

Now, onto the next problem with a top crust pie. How do you eat this thing?


Lifting the lid on this pie reveals long strands of flabby pastry trailing off the lid and flopping around in the gravy soup below. Clearly this isn't the effect Waitrose are going for with this pie, but what other option do I have to get this pie out of the foil tin? Unless I'm meant to eat the pie in the foil? That can't be right, surely?


Okay, so I've got the pie out of its foil bath tub, and now its swimming around on my plate, topped off with a raft of pastry. I hope you can see now why the top crust pie is inferior - I might as well have just had a stew!

The filling itself tastes very nice. The gravy has a very smooth consistency (some might say 'velvety'), with a fine taste of Fullers ale, and the pastry at least tastes nice and buttery, even if it doesn't go all the way round. Together, it's a nice combination of flavours, and the meat is not chewy (which is always a good thing). Cost-wise, £2.99 is at the upper scale of a supermarket pie - especially an own brand, 1 person portion - so unfortunately it will lose a few points there.

Although you could taste the quality in the filling, overall this pie was not a great experience for me and I personally couldn't recommend it.

Waitrose Aberdeen Angus Steak & Ale Top Crust Pie
Score: 3.5/7
TJP

Hungry for more? View all of our Waitrose Pie Reviews!

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Waitrose - Chicken and White Wine Pie Review

I don't often pop into my local Waitrose. Mainly because I don't have one. I live in one of the more 'edgy' parts of South London. We don't have many of the kinds of people who go to Waitrose. More the kinds of people who walk down the street talking to a stick or asking for 37p because they went into the pub and 'lost' all their money.


So upon finding myself in a Waitrose store I decided to try one of their premium products. I thought I deserved this after taking one for the team and reviewing some of the cheap Tesco Value pies. The slightly unusual flavour of Chicken & Tarragon caught my eye. This pie came in at just under £4 for one which didn't seem great on the Cheapness front. That said it probably wasn't designed to be for one person but I felt up to the challenge. It looked to be in great Condition after a short time in the cookery box. A golden puff pastry lid and shortcrust sides, my favourite. Cutting it open a lovely creamy gravy oozed out. Taking a bite what struck me was the unusually high quality of the chicken. It didn't taste at all reconstituted or pumped full of water like too often is the case with supermarket pies. The next feather in the cap for this pie was one of the holy grails for the pie lover. Pastry crispy on the outside but gooey on the inside. It was really a delight to eat and one of the best pies I have had in a while.

Chicken, White Wine & Tarragon (Waitrose)
6.35/7

SJL 
 

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No, this isn't meant to be Britain's best pie review - rather, a review of 'Britain's Best Pie', a very bold claim carried by Waitrose's Shortcrust Pastry Apple, Stilton & Fig Pie. The pie was bestowed the distinction of Britain's Best Pie by ITV show Lorraine, as viewers were invited to submit their own homemade pie recipes for judging and the winning recipe would appear on the shelves of Waitrose supermarkets.

Lorraine says "This is Britain's Best Pie"

Immediately, I met with some concern over calling it "Britain's Best Pie". Looking at the competition entry rules, it seems like this is Britain's Best Pie as long as it comprises short crust pastry, is commercially viable, has a story behind it, and doesn't contain fish, shellfish, nuts or sesame. That means that classics like Pieminister's Pietanic fish pie couldn't enter, and all of our puff pastry favourites would instantly be rejected. Furthermore, even if your pie submission fulfilled all of the entry criteria, it still won't have won a British Pie Award - and considering entries were just short of 1,000 pies this year, that's nearly 1,000 pies that Britain's Best Pie won't have competed against. How can you call it Britain's Best Pie when the criteria excludes ingredients that could legitimately be included in a pie, and the pie hasn't even entered one of the country's foremost pie competitions? Still, I'm going to put these issues behind me and crack on with the pie. Here it is, out of the box.

Errrr....is that a crumble topping?

Wait, what's this?! Britain's Best Pie...is...is...is not even a pie?! What on Earth? If anyone was going to know what makes a pie the best pie in Britain, it would be the British Pie Awards - and if I could just kindly refer you to their competition entry rules page, you'll note that a pie must comply with 'a filling totally and wholly encased in pastry'. This pie's all-important pastry lid seems to have been replaced by a crumble topping. Calling yourself "Britain's Best Pie" and then not actually being a pie is a very audacious move indeed.

But what about the cost? I bought this pie from my local Waitrose for £2.99, which is definitely at the premium end of supermarket pie prices but by no means the most expensive pie you can buy in a supermarket. Okay, let's move on. The instructions tell me to remove all packaging, including the foil, before cooking in the oven. As I try to remove the foil before cooking, as clearly detailed to me on the packet, this is what happens:

Pastry failure

Yes, disaster has struck. The foil has become stuck to the pastry, so as I try to peel it away the pastry simply rips. We have a case of pastry failure. I can't turn the pie upside down to help remove it from the foil because the crumble topping will fall away. I wouldn't consider myself to be particularly clumsy, and I have past experience in removing pies easily from their wrappers, but this pie has me utterly foiled. It seems that the pastry is too thin and sticky, and won't glide away from the foil. Once I prise the pie away from it's wrapper, I am left with terrible mess. The pastry is too thin for the pie to properly support itself, and with the structural integrity of the casing ruined, Britain's Best Pie collapses under its own wait. Not a good look, and won't score highly on condition.

There's no messing about with Britain's Best Pie

Even if the pie hadn't ripped, I doubt the pie could have held itself together. The pastry sides seem very weak to me. I put the pie in the oven for the suggested time and stare out the window in deep contemplation about the World. My emotions are bouncing off the walls. Is this really Britain's Best Pie? What is a pie, anyway? What am I? What is the definition of a soul? Is that grass really green?

This is Britain's Best Pie. Just £2.99 in all good Waitrose stores.

I remove Britain's Best Pie from the oven and she's not looking too pretty. Having to scrape the remnant of your pie from the baking tray is never going to score positively for any pie, let alone one acting under the guise of Britain's Best Pie. Some of the pastry scraps have burnt a little, but the rest of the pie looks in good order. Here at Pierate it's become a tradition to offer a cross-sectional view of the pie. Now, we evidently don't really need such a photo in this instance, but here's one anyway.

A cross-sectional view of Britain's Best Pie

As much as this pie has fallen apart and looks terrible (and isn't even a true pie), it still does look pretty tasty. You can see individual bits of fig and apple in there, and it looks look quite fresh and light. On tasting the pie, it is actually very nice. It's tangy, with some nice crunch juxtaposed with the softness of the fruit and creaminess of the cheese. I can now see why this pie did so well in the competition, for it does actually taste very nice indeed. It's sweet, yet is a savoury delight. It's creamy and cheesy, but not at all sickening (like some other cheese pies we've had). I could certainly eat more of this pie, and it's a shame that I lost quite a bit of it in the cooking process.Overall, the pie tastes great with delicious ingredients, but unless I've been particularly clumsy with this pie (which I doubt), Waitrose really really need to do something about this pastry issue. To have a pie rip and collapse like that is clearly very undesirable! So was it Britain's Best Pie? No. Not by long shot. It's not even a pie.

Waitrose Apple, Stilton & Fig Pie.
Score: 5.05/7 (Sail the Seven Cs for how we rate our pies)
TJP

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Pierate Pie Rating Demo – Mince Pie Edition

On board the Pierate Ship we are always looking for new ways to share our love of pies with the world. So when attending a Christmas Party with some friends, Pierateer RAS decided to - ins-pie-red by @aliimdadbakes cake making demo - host the first ever Pierate Pie Rating Demo!

That's right - an informative and educational whistle stop tour of how to rate a pie - the Pierate way! With three mince pies each to rate in a near blind taste test (the lights had been turned down low to create ambience in the room, which led to us having to use our mobile phones to see the plates of pies!!!) a group of wannabe Pierateers joined Pierateer RAS for a thorough brief.



Pie Rating Demo - before and after!

All ‘Pierateers in Training’ were given a copy of the 7 Cs - the way us Pierateers have been rating pies since we started four years ago - and were guided through the requirements. None of the guest Pierateers were told where the mince pies were bought from, let alone which one was which!

But before I tell you whose pie was rated highest by me and by the 'Pierateers in Training', here are the scores on the doors:

Cs	Pie A	Pie B	Pie C	Average
Colour	6	5	5.5	5.5
Capacity	4.75	5.25	6	5.3
Consistency	4.5	5	5.5	5
Condition	5.5	5	5.5	5.3
Chewiness	5.5	5.5	5.5	5.5
Cheapness	3	6	5.5	4.8
Content	5	5	6	5.3
Seven Cs Score	4.89	5.25	5.64	5.26

Name	Pie A	Pie B	Pie C	Highest Rated
Tim	4.14	5	5.5	Pie C
Ramin	1	5	4	Pie B
Tom	3.71	5	5	Pie B and Pie C
Will	4	4	5	Pie C
Brittany	2.86	5.14	3.57	Pie B
John	3	3	4	Pie C
Pierateer RAS	4.89	5.25	5.64	Pie C
Average	3.37	4.62	4.67	Pie C

And for those intrigued as to which pie was which, the results were:

Pie A = Heston from Waitrose Puff Pastry Mince Pie
Score: 4.89/7

Pie B = Tesco Mince Pie
Score: 5.25/7

Pie C = Sainsbury’s Deep Filled Mince Pie
Score: 5.64/7

So there we have it – while there were a few slight differences in scoring, we have a winner by a very small margin. Well done Sainsbury’s on winning this particular Pierate Pie Rating Demo – Mince Pie Edition! Until next time...

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