Inject them with a little brandy?
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Yeah something like that. A teaspoon of oneâs favourite tipple.
I think weâve just found a situation where Just Eat would be acceptable.
This reminds me of my uncle Brian. When I was about 13 he introduced me to brandy and port in mince pies; we would remove the top, make a well in the mince and fill it to the brim with port and/or brandy.
I donât remember much else of that Xmas dayâŚ
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Lid.
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No crumble
Getting shot of the dusting might be good too.
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Miriam would deploy more colourful languageâŚ
Just had another one of those co-op abominations which tick all the boxes. Awful.
You have taken the first step to full Heston stilton heresy. Think of this as friends making an early intervention.
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You forgot boo hoo dustingâŚ
The pastry looks great on those, crumble or not. Mmmm crumble pie.
Crumble
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I see the conformists have arrived with a skip load of butt-hurt. 
There will be no progress, the conformists have spoken.
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Yet suggest segments of an attractive yellow fruit on a pizza & all hell breaks loose.
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Wasnât actually crumble, but you see how it elicited a Pavlovian reaction.
A mince pie is a straightforward thing, it does not need fucking about with because done well, and within certain generous parameters, it is an entirely fucking excellent thing - greater than the sum of its humble parts.
Now, I wish I could link that statement to these -
(ÂŁ3 for 6)
âŚwhich I have recently ingurgitated.
I cannot.
Tried warm from the oven, they strive for adequacy, and approach it in a number of respects. For starters, unlike certain other M&S brethren, they have no worrying aromas. However they do fail to quite achieve true âPieâ status - hovering uneasily between that and âtartâ with their tryhard snowflake lid-theme. That is A Thing that needs to fuck-off - itâs not a killer blow, just silly.
Where they do score highly is in a light hand with sugar - there is no granulated âSatanâs Dandruffâ on the top, just a very light dusting of powder. Similarly, the pastry is bordering on savoury which gives a nice contrast with the filling.
The filling is where things fall apart somewhat - it is frankly blander than a mormon-reacharound, and led just a little-too-vigorously by orange peel: not unpleasantly, but a mite too marmaladey to achieve balance. Spice is far too shy and retiring, booze undetectable, but fruit at least does make itself known.
Iâd place these behind the Spar efforts, and ahead of all else Iâve tried so far.
You-can-do-a-lot-worse/10
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The concept of left over mince pies is quaint.
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Fixt.
By the way, whatâs âcornfl ourâ ? Should it be âcornfl hourâ ?