The amount of icing on display here is SUBSTANTIAL, the oozy kind of soft, and with almost no structure to the soft pastry that deformed and broke on all of the pies.

It seems they've changed this year, with the supermarket rating at only 3.8 out of 5 on the product page, down from 4.4 in 2020. We can't say we tried these last year, but had so many people reach out and recommend them, we felt like we had to!

What a disappointment.

If you're looking for an Iced Mince Pie this year, you may want to look elsewhere unless the very specific characterises of this pie is what you're interested in (but we respectfully suggest you perhaps try something else in any case).

1. Mincemeat

The mincemeat here is actually pretty good when we dissected the mince pie it and ate it on it's own. The trouble is it's so overwhelmed by the 'Iced Top' which is insanely sweet, goopy and out of proportion that you just can't taste it by itself.

The image above is a cross-section we made of the pie and we couldn't believe there isn't more icing in there. By some mysterious force of magic the icing seems able to coat your whole mouth in this tarry sweet paste the moment you start chewing rendering you unable to taste anything except the piercing highs of several tablespoons of sugar in every bite.

2. Pastry

Perhaps the only thing worse than the icing in the highly recommended Tesco's Iced Topped Mince Pie is the pastry case. It's soft and doesn't hold it's shape (the above image was taking from the third pie we tried to cut in half because they kept crumbling under the gentle sawing of our knife). It's not bad tasting, but I'm certain you could crumble the casing and reform it into a Christmas themed sandcastle should you wish which when it's trying to stand up to several bites renders the unsuspecting soul you've fobbed these off onto eating without any sense of grace or decorum.

3. Taste

Sickly is perhaps the only word that can adequately be used to describe such a mince pie. This blood sugar assassin does hit the highest of highs as far as sweetness goes, but in doing so renders the rest of the pie almost moot. As mentioned the filling and pastry are fine, taste-wise, but the iced top is enough to put grandad down for an immediate cat nap when his sugar crashes.

Tesco's Iced Topped Mince Pies: Final Verdict

The best thing going for these mince pies is the price, but give you'll also need a hoover to grab the casing after it disintegrates in your hands, it could actually be the most expensive mince pie on the site.

Avoid.