Morrisons and Walkers - Pork Pie Comparison

Here at Pierate we have rated over 300 pies in the four years or so we have been sailing the 7 Cs. One of the challenges is trying to maintain some consistency with our pie reviews and ensure we are being fair to the producers. Of course it is impossible to be completely consistent as it is subjective as to what a great pie should taste like and we have a number of reviewers. It can also be difficult when trying to compare a pie to another one you may have eaten a year ago. To try and combat this I have here a Pie Head to Head. It will make it much easier to do a direct comparison of these two different brands of pork pie when eating them at the same time. We have in the red corner a Morrisons individual pork pie. In the blue corner a Walker & Son individual pork pie. The Morissons effort costs only 69p whereas the Walkers version was 89p. Would paying that extra 20p really mean I get a better pie? I often suspect that branded products are pretty much the same except for the packaging.


Taking them out of the wrappers and cutting them in half quickly showed that this wasn’t the case. For a start they were different shapes with the Walkers pie having more height and less width. For me this gave it a better pastry to filling ratio that the Morrisons version. They both looked quite appealing with the Walkers having the darker brown colour as typical of pies from the Melton Mowbray region. The meat was also more of a grey colour in the Walkers pie whereas the Morissons version was more pink. Again, I believe the greyer meat is typical of a Melton Mowbray pork pie. I was somewhat confused as to why it didn't say that the Walkers pie was a Melton because they are one of the most well known Melton Mowbray pork pie producers and this certainly seemed like a Melton. To find out more see our Melton Mowbray pork pie article.

But appearances can be deceiving, the real test was in the eating! The Morrisons pie fared pretty well on the first bite, the pastry was great, it was soft inside and crunchy on the outside which gave it a nice texture. However, the pink meat was a bit too mushy, there was also a lack of jelly meaning it wasn’t really what I expected from a pork pie. To me it tasted more what I would expect the filling of a sausage roll to taste like. Having said that, the filling did still taste good and wasn’t at all chewy, I enjoyed eating the pie. I did find that there were some minor air gaps where I would have expected jelly to have been.


I was pleased to find that the Walkers was much better. The pastry had an even better crunch while again being soft on the inside. The filling had a wonderful texture, being granula rather than mushy. It did feel more like eating chunks of meat. The seasoning also captured that classic pork pie taste whist not overpowering the meaty taste. The only downside was that there were some air gaps although most of the gaps were filled with jelly. Certainly a pie I would get again.

In summary, it is interesting to see that in this case paying more really did make a difference. Whilst they were both good pies for the respective prices the Walkers pie is the one I would buy again if I could afford to. I think it was worth the difference.

Individual Pork Pie (Morrisons)
5.07/7

Individual Pork Pie (Walker and Son)
6.06/7

SJL

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It never seeks to amaze me how many people love pie and love the concept of www.pierate.co.uk – that we simply rate the pies we find to find the ones you should eat! Thank you so much for your Pie love!

And having just reached a landmark 100,000 pageviews in the early hours of Saturday 15th February 2014 – doubling from 50,000 pageviews in just 4 months! – we are delighted to be appealing to pie lovers the world over. With well over 300 pies rated, we’re beginning to feel like pie-fessionals now! And the great news is we’re just getting going, with loads of pie-deas planned for celebrating British Pie Week from 3rd to 9th March 2014!

So why don’t you check out our #PiePledge article and make it a promise of yours to eat pie for British Pie Week and let us know how it rates. To encourage this, we’ll be creating a “Pies eaten in British Pie Week” thread for you to leave your comments and scores out of 7! Or check back on to www.pierate.co.uk to see how we’re getting on with our #PiePledges! We have a number of pie companies lined up to give us pies that will no doubt take us past our target of 51 pies or more in British Pie Week (beating the 50 pies we ate last year) and are sure you will all be enjoying plenty of pies too!

One of the pie-lights of the last four months has been sponsoring our first event - the @Woodies12 production of "Captain Hook's Revenge" (which we also had the pleasure of attending!) We also set sail with our Pie Treasure Map - a map of the world showing where the nearest pie we've rated is to you! And we're also delighted to confirm that we have a new most viewed page on our website! The "Best Pie in London" article has been near the top of Google searches for a while now and is our number one - displacing our article on how McDonald's Apple Pies are not really pies at all!

And in all this ex-pie-tment I can’t forget to mention that we have two new Honorary Pierateers to celebrate reaching this landmark of 100,000 pageviews! Ashleigh Auld and Olivia Rust have been keen supporters of www.pierate.co.uk over the last few months that we’ve hit the big time – including our first interview (on International Pierate Day) and meeting up for our first “Pierateers in Training” session – where we shared top tips on how to rate pies using the 7 Cs! They will be presented with their Pierate prizes and certificate in due course.

Don’t forget to regularly check back to our Pie Rankings to see where our new pie rated adventures score in our growing list and do check the Pies: Categorised page for a growing number of “top 3 pies” – split into various fillings, brands and supermarkets (including our new Tesco Pie Reviews page and Sainsbury’s Pie Reviews page!)

RAS

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Chicken, Gammon and Leek and Thyme crust pie and Lamb, Rosemary and Garlic Potato and Honey pie from Lovett Pies

It has to be said we can get a bit passionate about our pies – even if we do sometimes struggle to match Keegan at his best! And it’s great to find local pie producers who are passionate about their pies too. Lovett Pies in Bath are a fine example of top artisan pie making and you can read more a more detailed introduction to them in our initial review of their pies. And with strong recommendations following the Lovett pies Pierateer SJL had already rated, and a couple of them frozen and saved for a joint review between Pierateers SJL and RAS, it was time to give the final two flavours a rating.

The pies of choice were the Chicken, Gammon and Leek and Thyme crust and the Lamb, Rosemary and Garlic Potato and Honey. It must be noted that having been frozen this did seem to adversely affect the flavour slightly, with the content being a bit drier compared to the other pies that Pierateer SJL ate both hot and cold. However with that considered in the scoring, these pies were still very much appreciated. You could tell the handcrafted nature of these pies and that a lot of thought had been put into the flavouring and quality of ingredients.

Chicken, Gammon and Leek and Thyme crust

The Lovett pies follow a fine tradition of being filled with plenty of meat and this chicken, gammon and leek pie was no exception. It was very meaty and there was a good mix. The content was reasonably moist and the stuffing had an interesting flavour to it which complimented the meat filling. The more unusual addition of a thyme crust added additional flavouring to compliment the pastry, with the thyme layer sitting just below the top pastry lid.

The pastry was quite crisp and held together well, flaking nicely but keeping the shape of the pie. While not the biggest pie for £3.50, it was certainly full of meat and the Thyme certainly added to the flavouring. Well worth having again.

Chicken, Gammon and Leek and Thyme crust pie
Score: 5.43/7

Lamb, Rosemary and Garlic Potato and Honey

Once again what immediately struck Pierateer RAS – rating Lovett pies for the first time – was the great capacity for a small pie. This meant that what it lacked in size it certainly made up for in filling, with a very strong capacity to the pie. The lamb was really lovely, very light and tender and delightful to eat. However while the capacity was strong, there was a fair bit of potato present and it felt like this was padding the pie out slightly.

We Pierateers do like our meat pies to be really meaty, so whilst the potato, rosemary and honey added to the pie and made it taste a bit more unique, these ingredients would need to make a bigger impact in terms of being more flavoursome to really warrant their place in this pie. The pastry was nice and flaky, but with not much gravy in the pie it also felt a bit dry in places. A good pie but could be tweaked slightly to make it even more highly rated.

Lamb, Rosemary and Garlic Potato and Honey pie
Score: 5.36/7

So with two more Lovett pies earning the “Pierate Recommended” status, we can certainly say that we would Lovett if we eat more of them. And we will certainly keep our eyes peeled for any new, creative flavours they produce.

RAS and SJL

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Don’t worry! Having been writing the blog anonymously for over 4 years now, I’m not going to be revealing the identities of the five Pierateers and the Pierate Ship’s Cook!

However if you would like to know a bit more about the Pierateers you can do this by visiting our About Us page, where you will find information about how www.pierate.co.uk came into existence, our love of pies and a brief bio about each Pierateer and the Ship’s Cook.

Pierateers ARL, SJL, RAS and TJP

We’ve also just added a Contact Us page - specifically for the benefit of Pie Companies who may wish to join the illustrious list of producers who have sent us free pies to rate and also anyone who may have a media enquiry where they need a pie expert. We have already done phone interviews, video interviews and at 1pm on 26th February 2014 will be doing our first radio interview, talking about pies for about an hour with BCfm Radio in Bristol.

Also, don’t forget you can find out more about the Pierateers and get in touch via Twitter by visiting @pierateers

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I’m sure you won’t need any reminding that it is British Pie Week from 3rd to 9th March this year – we certainly won’t let you miss it! – but you may be thinking “What can I do for British Pie Week?!”

After all, you may have read our British Pie Week article and know that in British Pie Week 2013 we ate 50 pies between the three of us and Pierateer SJL went a day with #onlypiesallowed – where he only ate 3362 kcal of pie (11 pies and nothing else) for a whole day! Not everyone is quite that pie-crazy!

But what can you do for British Pie Week? Well we’d love you to get involved in whatever way you can and here’s how:

Introducing the #PiePledge

Last year in British Pie Week 2013 we introduced the #PiePledge as a way for pie eaters or pie makers to make pledges either before or during British Pie Week about what they are going to commit to do regarding pie. And with British Pie Week coming up soon, what better thing than make your #PiePledge ready for British Pie Week?


Here’s some examples for individuals:

- #PiePledge to eat a pie every day of British Pie Week (not for the feint hearted but the Pierateers pledge to do this as standard)
- #PiePledge to “shop local” and buy a pie from an independent local supplier/butchers rather than the Supermarkets for British Pie Week
- #PiePledge to complete Pie-thagoras Theorem on one day of British Pie Week – where you eat pie for breakfast, lunch and dinner! (See our article on Pie-thagoras Theorem for more details!)
- #PiePledge to make a homemade pie – completely from scratch – this British Pie Week
- #PiePledge to eat a flavour of pie you’ve never tried before – like Zebra, Kangaroo or Squirrel

And here’s some examples for pie companies:

- #PiePledge to release a new pie flavour for British Pie Week
- #PiePledge to increase the number of pie-motions in British Pie Week to boost pie sales even further!
- #PiePledge to tweet about pies even more than usual in British Pie Week (though that's surely a given!)

We hope we’ve provided some ins-pie-ration for your #PiePledge and look forward to unveiling some of our #PiePledge ideas live on air on BCfm Radio when we appear in the studio on Wednesday 26th February – the week before British Pie Week! You will be able to listen in on your lunch break from 1-2pm by going to www.bcfmradio.com/player or catch up from Wednesday evening by going to www.bcfmradio.com/food to hear from Pierateer RAS and the Pierateers plans for British Pie Week!

You can tweet your #PiePledge to @pierateers or leave a comment below - but more than anything, enjoy your pies in British Pie Week!

Here's new Honorary Pierateer Ashleigh's #PiePledge:

My #PiePledge is to eat 1 pie in USA and then have one pie on sat 8th that I've never tried before as I'm back in the UK @pierateers
— Ashleigh Auld (@AshleighAuld) February 16, 2014

And here's new Honorary Pierateer Olivia's #PiePledge:

I have my #piepledge @pierateers @AshleighAuld I will make a pie from scratch AND to prove I have done this I will send you photos!
— Olivia Rust (@OllyRust) February 17, 2014

Here's the #PiePledge from pie company Dorset Pies:

@pierateers our #piepledge #BritishPieWeek is to make sure that all our pies are full to the brim - no air gaps allowed!
— Dorset Pies (@DorsetPieCo) February 18, 2014

Here's a great charitable #PiePledge from pie company mash&pie:

@pierateers Time to talk #piepledge We will cook 40 of our tastiest pies and donate these to a homeless charity in Leeds #allaboutthemash
— mash&pie (@mashnpie) February 18, 2014

Here's Joseph's #PiePledge:

@pierateers #piepledge hoping to have a pie for dinner each day, first year taking part so want to start off slowly
— Joseph (@uberarticuno) February 21, 2014

Here is Daniel's which is impressive!

My #PiePledge for #BritishPieWeek is to have a different pie for breakfast, lunch and dinner. How's that @pierateers?
— Daniel John Lynch (@DanielJohnLynch) February 24, 2014

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Potts Pie House Chunky Steak Pie Review

On a recent trip to Morecambe, we wanted to see how Potts Pies had faired since we reviewed them first in March 2010. In fact, this wasn't just any old pie back in 2010 - this was the first EVER pie review on www.pierate.co.uk! So with over 300 pies reviewed since then, we thought it well worth going back to see how Potts Pies are fairing since then!

Potts Pie House

So the first thing to note is that we actually went to "Potts Pie House" in Morecambe - which is a franchise shop of the Potts Pie range. They sell the standard range of Potts Pies you would find in other establishments around the North West of England, but provide that homely setting with which to eat pie in (or other food, but let's face it, we only had our eyes on the pies!!!)

So having already reviewed the Meat and Potato pie, we opted for the Chunky Steak pie, which at £3.50 was the most expensive individual hot pie you could order but with it containing chunky pieces of steak we couldn't resist. However even with it being a bit more pricey than comparison steak pies, the question of "Was it worth it?" sprang to mind.

The condition as can be seen from the photo was pretty good, with a slight air gap in the lid (we'd have preferred to not have one present) but it didn't diminish the flavour. The pie had a crisp outer rim - which pre-eating I was slightly nervous about being too dry and not complementing the rest of the pie - but instead it added a nice bite to the pie crust. I was in fact quite happy just eating the pie pastry on its own - without meat and gravy to accompany it - which I don't often feel I would do with your average pie.


The colour of the pie was quite good, reasonably golden in colour. It couldn't really have had a much better capacity too, as the pie was rammed full of steak just as it was sold as being. The chunks of steak were tender and the gravy was a nice consistency to complement the meat but not overpower it. The meat wasn't very chewy, which was good, and the content was plain and simply all steak with a lovely viscocity to the beef gravy.

All in all, the Pie House has done Potts Pies proud in serving a delicious steak pie in a lovely cafe setting, giving delicious pies to the people of Morecambe!

Potts Pie House Chunky Steak Pie
Score: 6.11/7
[Colour 6.25/7; Consistency 6.23/7; Cheapness 4.75/7; Chewiness 6.25/7; Condition 6.63/7; Content 6.5/7; Capacity 6.13/7; Total: 6.11/7]
RAS & SJL

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With the eyes of the world on Russia and the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, and our eyes firmly on the pies, it’s great when the two worlds coincide.

So following the great news of Jenny Jones winning Team GB’s first medal of the Games, with a fantastic performance in the slopestyle event, it was great to see that the Bristol-based athlete had not only won a bronze Olympic medal but an offer of a nice warm pie or two awaiting her return to her home town!

Nice one @jennyjonessnow! You've definitely earned a hot pie or two on us when you're back in Bristol. #Sochi2014
— pieminister (@pieminister) February 9, 2014

Yes, Bristol-based pie company Pieminister have got caught up in the Olympic spirit and offered Jenny a free pie or two to toast her success! And if she jumps at the chance, I’m sure she won’t be left filling disappointed! We’ve rated 8 of the pies from Pieminister already and you can read about those on our Pieminister pie review page!

These 'golden' Olympic pies were the Mr Kipling Pies featured in our '12 Pies of Christmas' video

While we don’t yet know if Jenny is a fan of the pie – though to be honest, what better way to warm yourself up after a few hours hitting the slopes?! – we will let you know if we hear of whether Jenny jumps at the chance for a free pie. You know we certainly would!

In the meantime, we’ll be continuing to enjoy eating pies and cheering on Team GB as we watch the Olym-pie-cs!

RAS

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Bells - Scotch Pie Review

In order to produce our list of the best Scotch Pies we have travelled around to try the most highly recommended Scotch pies. But really Scotch pies are available everywhere in supermarkets across the UK and it seems appropriate to also consider some of these more common, mass produced options. At the very least it will give us something to gauge against. The most popular brand in UK supermarkets seems to be Bells Scotch Pies. They claim to be one of the best-selling Scotch pies in the world, with 3 out of 4 shoppers in Scotland buying Bells each year. Surely that means they must be good!?


I grabbed an individual Scotch pie from a Scotmid Co-op for the princely sum of 79p. This is a pretty standard price for Scotch pies but you can get them cheaper from local bakeries. Upon taking it out of the oven it smelt pretty good, a classic Scotch pie smell. However it seemed quite flaccid whereas Scotch pie cases normally have a bit of ridgidity. Cutting into it there was no Crunch at all which you want with a Scotch pie. Without the crunchy pastry the whole thing is just a bit too mushy for my liking and that is exactly what happened here.

The pastry was too thick which meant it was too doughy despite it having been cooked for the recommended time. The Capacity wasn't great, the characteristic Scotch pie rim at the top had been extended too far this time. I could not help but think this was to save on filling. Hence the optimum pastry to filling ratio was lost.

The filling was okay. The main good thing I would say was that the mince beef wasn’t too fatty. A bit of fat is needed with a Scotch pie to keep it moist, this pie got the balance about right. However the seasoning was really lacking. Normally a Scotch pie will have a peppery taste but the main seasoning I picked up with the Bells pie was salt.


Overall there wasn’t much that was good about this pie. I am not quite sure why you would want to buy it, even if it is one of the few choices of Scotch pie outside of Scotland. I guess if it was covered in mash, gravy etc then the blandness might not notice. Quite disappointing, perhaps it is just not that easy to mass produce Scotch pies that taste good. Do tell us if you know of any better alternatives, especially outside of Scotland.

Beef Scotch Pie (Bells)
Score: 3.09/7

SJL

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...there's a Random Pie button!


Go on. Click it! See where it takes you!

Perhaps you might like to play a game of pie roulette - click for a random pie, and then have it for dinner! You might just unearth a gem of a pie, or even some old pie reviews even we'd forgotten we'd done.

You can always find a random pie by clicking the "Take me to a random pie" link on the right hand side or the big random button below each post.

Go on! Click away! It's random!

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Borneo Pie Reviews

For our last holiday Pierateer ALE and I decided to spend a few weeks in Malaysian Borneo. Before I left I was slightly apprehensive about how I would fare. Pierateer TJP had previously spent some time in Borneo and encountered no pies. I was aghast at the thought of spending three weeks without eating any pies. So how did I get on? Well the typical food doesn't involve pastry in any way. Rice and noodles are the staple foods with the fried varieties being particularly good. Malaysian curry was something I hadn't tried before but I came away with quite a taste for it. The omnipresent Laksa soup was also worth tasting but could be quite spicy. My favourite local food was Rendang, a rich, slow cooked beef curry. However, none of these culinary delights ticked the boxes that a pie does. There is a fulfilment that a pie can give and noodles don't even come close. Hence I was pleased to discover pie almost at the very start of my trip.

A Proboscis Monkey in Bako National Park looking out to sea, wishing Borneo had more pies

The trip commenced with a stop over in Kuala Lumpar, a brash clod-hopper of a city on mainland Malaysia. The heaving old parts of the city mix side by side with the gleaming modernity of the new city built by oil dollars (or oil Ringgits when in Malaysia). The iconic Petronas towers highlight how much Malaysia has developed from oil money. The photo below shows the view of the Petronas towers from the nearby KL radio Tower. We didn’t much like KL for a stop over though, it is hot and congested and it is pretty much not possible to walk even the shortest distances due to lack of pavements. It is certainly not designed for pedestrians.

View of the Petronas Towers from KL Tower

Then we got a flight over to Kuching, the largest city in the Malay state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo. This place was a lot mellower with a lovely waterfront promenade. Actually, probably more mellow than normal because a lot of the shops were closed due to the Chinese New Year. The only places that were open were the very western shopping malls that Kuching had. Despite not feeling very authentically Malaysian this did lead to an opportunity for pie. I was amazed to discover the Kuching Starbucks actually stocked a couple of types of pie! (Despite their British outlets never selling our favourite pastry product.) I was quite excited to see both Beef and Onion Pie and a Curry Pie in the chiller cabinet and promptly got in the queue. I was keen to get the curry pie as I thought it might be more Asian in taste. Unfortunately there was a little girl behind me in the queue who told her Dad she really wanted a curry pie…. And there was only one left…. I just had to go with the beef and onion!

For some reason Starbucks in Borneo sell pies!

The pie came well presented on a plate although it had a strange vent hole which had made some of the gravy congeal. Sadly this pie was a bit of a disappointment to eat, there was a lot of pastry and it was a bit dry. This was not like the pastry on a British pie, it was more like Chinese pastry. The filling however was surprisingly similar to that found in a beef and onion pie at home and wasn’t bad and had plenty of gravy. This shows that meat pies are loved all around the world! Unfortunately there was also a piece of foil embedded in the pastry which didn’t inspire me to think that this pie was top quality! I can't quite remember the price but at the time I scored it only 3 out of 7 for cheapness. Starbucks prices were very expensive by Bornean standards. It wasn't a great pie for the price but one I would perhaps have bought again because there were no alternatives!


Colour 5
Consistency 5
Cheapness 3
Chewiness 3
Content 5
Capacity 4
Condition 2


Beef & Onion (Starbucks [Borneo])
3.86/7


After spending time in Kuching we headed to Bako national park and stayed there a night. This was in a beautiful setting by the beach. Here we saw plenty of monkeys including the Proboscis monkey with it’s incredible nose. The night walk was not to be missed with glow in the dark scorpions and a fantastic display by the fireflies. After Bako we went to Semongoko Orangutan Sanctuary and were lucky enough to see a large number of Orangutans. Heading north we spent time in a traditional longhouse on a homestay before taking a short flight into Mulu National Park. For me the caves in Mulu park were one of the highlights of the trip, especially Deer Cave with it’s huge entrance and the idealic Garden of Eden. The rooves of the caves were covered in bats which produced unbelievable quantities of poo, making the floor a sea of insects in some places. Enough to put you off eating pie! Treking on from there we got to the most challenging part of the trip, The Pinnacles. This impressive, spikey rock formation is worth seeing, but is hard to get to. The trail to the Pinnacles viewing point is only 2.4 km long but it rises 1,200m and the last section is near vertical with ropes and ladders to climb. The chances of rain are high which make it slippery.

The Pierateers reach The Pinnacles

Heading north to Limpang via the Headhunter’s Trail we took a ferry to Kota Kinnabalu. We stayed just outside of town and for one dinner headed to the nearby Langkah Syabas hotel where I was lucky enough to see another pie on the menu, although not really local cusine. The hotel is owned by an Australian so this was a traditional Aussie Meat Pie for 25 Ringgits (close to £5!). It was a good pie, however, at this price, which was very high for Borneo, it didn’t really do enough to impress. It was also a bit disconcerting for the menu not to tell me what the meat was. I will admit it was presented well and the pastry was nice and soft and slipped down easily. The filling was meaty without being exciting. I haven't tried pies in Australia but this wasn't as good as Aussie style pies I have had in the UK. See our article on Aussie pies.


Colour 5.3
Consistency 3.7
Cheapness 1.2
Chewiness 5
Content 3.5
Capacity 4
Condition 5.5


Aussie Meat (Langkah Syabas Hotel [Borneo])
4.03/7


Sadly the trip didn’t contain any more pie adventures. We just headed to the Tip of Borneo to Howard Stanton’s Tampat Do Aman eco-camp. It was very basic (compost toilets!), with some traditionally constructed long houses but this was a lovely place to relax. Howard is a British ex-pat who is only too happy to help sorting out trips and activities for you. There are beaches not too far away and Howard has a restaurant called Tip Top on one of the beaches. There are plenty of idealic coves to explore and you are certain to be able to find one to yourself as the Tip of Borneo still seems to be a bit of a secret. The only problem was that perhaps Howard should have brought some of his British influence to the menu at Tip Top and added a pie option. However, I didn't hold this against him too much as the food at Tip Top was exceptional. Head there while you can as it is sure to be taken over by beach resorts soon according to Howard.

Tip of Borneo tranquillity (but no pies)

In summary, the pies weren’t great but don’t let this put you off a trip to Malaysian Borneo. There is so much to do and in a relatively small space. It is great for a short trip but there was plenty more I wanted to see and I would have loved to have spent longer there.

Sadly we encountered no Gluten Free pies so Pierateer ALE was unable to join me in the pie rating experience. However, we didn't expect there to be any and we found that the locals were in general very understanding of her Coeliac disease and quite often spoke English.

SJL

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Technology… it ain’t what it used to be! With the creation of Twitter, people can communicate across the globe with people you would never get to any other way! For us Pierateers, it’s a great way to share our love of pies with the world and as we’ve just hit 10,000 tweets, we thought we’d take a moment to reflect, appreciate and talk pie!

So here it is: some exciting news to celebrate in our 10,000th tweet!

After a couple of phone-ins on @BCfmRadio the Pierateers will be live in studio with @catmfarinha & @AlexandraDunca3 on Feb 26th at 1pm! :-)
— Pierate (@pierateers) February 7, 2014

It may be a sur-pies but we’ve only actually had a Twitter account since 18th December 2012, but in those 14 months we’ve been sharing our love of pies with the world, and been delighted to tweet about pie to so many lovely people and pie companies. So a big thank you to everyone who’s shared in the pie banter, enjoyed reading our pie reviews and sent us pie suggestions and pie puns for our Pierate Pie Dictionary! We've even added a "Pie Tunes" section to our Pie Dictionary in celebration at reaching 10,000 tweets (so do tweet us some suggestions!)

Tesco show their a-pie-reciation

An especially BIG THANK YOU to every pie company who has generously sent us pies or pie vouchers as part of conversations that have come up through Twitter. There are so many I couldn’t possibly list them all here, but a few pie-lights are the World Exclusive Apple Lattice Pies that Mr Kipling sent to us to rate, deliveries of pie goodies from Paul’s Pies, Simple Simon’s Perfect Pies, Lovett Pies, Nice Pie, Brocklebys, Sainsbury’s, Tesco (via the gift card they’ve sent for pies), Higgidy Pies, DS and Foodamentalists and invites for free pies from @MotherMash, @CanteenLondon and @PieburyCorner. We even arranged our sponsorship of @Woodies12 Pantomime "Captain Hook's Revenge" on Twitter!

What would Twitter be without the regular pie banter with pie producers @MotherMash, @CanteenLondon, @PieburyCorner and @Brays_Cottage and pie fans @NikSpeller, @AshleighAuld and @OllyRust and many, many more that keep us amused and entertained! We’ve exchanged tweets with Olympians, Great British Bake Off contestants and celebrity chefs (like our infamous fish pie debate with Nigella Lawson) but just as importantly we’ve had plenty of banter with you – the pie fans up and down the country who want to know a highly recommended pie when you see one!!!

We thank each and every pie producer and pie fan that’s retweeted us in the past and as we set off on our next 10,000 tweets, we hope that we continue to entertain, amuse and fill your twitter feeds with pie-fect pie reviews that you’ll love to read!

And don’t worry - it won’t be long until our next landmark celebration! We’ll tell you all about that on Twitter…

10,000 tweets - celebrated with a Pukka Pie!

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Foodamentalists Gluten Free Pie Reviews

From the moment I set my eyes on these Foodamentalist pies I couldn't wait to eat them!! I repeatedly asked Pierateer SJL "are you sure they are gluten free?" "have you made a mistake?" The reason for my confusion, is that I have never seen a gluten free pie so beautifully presented that arrived in a small cellophane wrapper with absolutely NO supportive packaging!!! I know what your thinking..INCREDIBLE!! Well I am not lying to you and I have the pictures for evidence (well okay, you just have to take my word about the gluten free part!!). On the menu was: fidget pie; pork, venison and cranberry; pork, black pudding and caramelised red onion pie and traditional pork pie. But don't worry, I didn't eat them all on my own!! Priced at £1.90 - £2.50 on their website this is a reasonable price for a quality product.


For starters was the traditional pork pie which like any pork pie, we ate cold. Having never found a GF pork pie, I was rather looking forward to this. However, my first mouthful filled me with disappointment as I had high hopes for these little fellas. I couldnt quite work out what this pie was trying to be - it looked like a traditional pork pie and was called this, but yet it largely tasted of sage. If anything, this pie reminded me of a sausage roll. It wasn't as crusty and didn't contain jelly like a gluten equivalent, which did affect the consistency as the filling didn't hold together as well as I would expect a picnic finger pie to do so. The texture was actually quite pleasant though, and not at all chewy like normal meat pies are.

Colour = 6
Consistency = 4.5
Capacity = 6
Chewiness = 6
Cheapness = 5
Content = 4.5
Condition = 6

Pork Pie (Foodamentalists)
5.42/7


Trying not to let this dampen my enthusiasm I moved onto the main course. First out of the oven was fidget pie.The pastry was so light, like nothing I have tried before and it had a slight crunch to it. The colour was again great and there was no air gap - a jam packed pie!! Although, I must admit that I couldn't really distinguish between the pastry and the filling as they both tasted fairly similar. The flavour was okay and felt nice and traditional.

Colour = 7
Consistency = 5
Capacity = 6
Chewiness = 6
Cheapness = 5
Content = 4.5
Condition = 6

Fidget Pie (Foodamentalists)
5.64/7

Next up....Pork, venison and cranberry. I liked the sound of this pie but in reality the cranberry's made the pie a little too sour. The meat was nice though.

Colour = 7
Consistency = 6
Capacity = 6
Chewiness = 6
Cheapness = 5
Content = 3.5
Condition = 6

Pork, Venison & Cranberry (Foodamentalists)
5.64/7

Pork, black pudding and caramelised red onion. I was fairly excited about the black pudding as I quite like it but its not something us coeliacs find much. Although, this did disappoint me as I didn't really like the taste and the pie lacked flavour.

Colour = 7
Consistency = 6
Capacity = 6
Chewiness = 6
Cheapness = 5
Content = 3.5
Condition = 6

Pork, Black Pudding & Caramelised Red Onion (Foodamentalists)
5.64/7

Lastly I tried what I thought was the best of all, the pork, chicken and stuffing....um...non-pie. It had a crumble topping so us Pierateers cant really call it a pie (as it's not fully encased). But I thought that I would mention that it had the best flavour of all the pies.

In conclusion, the pastry on these pies is probably gluten free world class! Like nothing I have ever tried before and will probably try again. It was so light, beautifully golden and deliciously tasty. Thank you Foodamentalists. However, the fillings despite being a lovely texture and not at all chewy, really did lack flavour. It must be noted that these pies had been frozen before I received them, which may have affected the flavour. As the pies are on their own, I don't plan to eat these again but if the flavour is improved I would jump at the opportunity as these really could be delicious pies!!

But before I go I must mention the desert! Foodamentalists were also good enough to send a box of Gluten Free Frangipane Mince Pies. The thing I liked about these is that they looked homemade and not like they came out of a machine. The frangipane topping was a really nice change and added to the taste. The mincemeat was similar to any other but not as sugary, this was something I liked. All in all a pretty good pie!


Colour = 5
Consistency = 6
Capacity = 5
Chewiness = 6
Cheapness = 5
Content = 5
Condition = 5

Mince Pie (Foodamentalists)
5.29/7

ALE

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