Gavster's Mince Pie Ranking 2021 (now inc NEW 2022 updates)

[mik]

*Thread Needs Title Amendment*

[Gavster]

*Thread Needs Title Amendment*

[mik]

*Thread Needs Title Amendment*

I may have momentarily FORGOTTEN that I STARTED this (feckin) THREAD.....

[dinny_g]

[Gavster]

*Thread Needs Title Amendment*

I may have momentarily FORGOTTEN that I STARTED this (feckin) THREAD.....

TBH it took me a moment to work out why I couldn't find a way to edit the title

[Swervin_Mervin]

This reminds me that I need to make mincemeat up for this year's mince pies. The key is the whole boiled lemon (sans pips obvs).

[DeskJockey]

It. Isn't. Even. Halfway. Through. October. Yet!

[Gavster]

It. Isn't. Even. Halfway. Through. October. Yet!

OOoooooohhhhh it gets earlier every year

If that was true then we'd be eating them in March

[DeskJockey]

On a work call and one of the others already has a Santa avatar and is listening to Christmas radio. It is wrong!

[Jobbo]

I have

Mince pies in stock at our local Co-op. I’ll make a start on them for elevenses.

So what were they like?

[Sundayjumper]

I have

Mince pies in stock at our local Co-op. I’ll make a start on them for elevenses.

So what were they like?

Shamefully I've only eaten one so far. Pastry & filling both good. No shortage of filling either; they could get away with less imo but I can understand this is a personal preference. I'm a big fan of carbs.

I can't give it five stars without trying out the competition but it's a solid 4+ and I'll reserve the right to boost it to the gold league later on.

[Nefarious]

Funnily enough, I caved in yesterday as well, and bought some Mr.Kiplings as last night's dessert.

Obviously nothing to write home about because they're Mr. Kiplings, but a good reminder that even a mediocre mince pie is pretty damn tasty.

[Gavster]

Conundrum for forum members of the slightly more scientific/geekier/maths/excel persuasion

I want to develop a way of rating mince pies in the context of the cost-of-living crisis, by adding a weighting to the score that modifies the taste test result in relation to value for money.

The process would be to do a blind taste test and rate the pie between 1 to 10. Then take that score at modify it based on a measure of financial cost. For the financial cost units I'm torn between £/100g or £/pie. The size of the pie could be quite an important factor, so I'm leaning towards £/100g to create a level playing field.

Should it simply be a scale based on the relative prices of the different pies? E.g. if the price per 100g ranges from £0.50 to £4.33, then convert that to a scale and apply it to each pie's rating, from the cheapest pie getting a boost and most expensive getting a penalty?

Or does this need to be a human feedback point, e.g. we need to manually rate them for VFM after tasting, to get two scores, and then add them together.

Or is there another way to approach this?

[Sundayjumper]

There are many ways to skin a cat ! You'll probably need to try out a few to see what gives you a sensible answer. You might want to add/remove <x> points, or you might want to scale the taste score by some % factor. Depending on the spread of data those might give very different outcomes.

For starters I think I'd try a scale based on min & max costs where the cheapest gets a boost representing VFM. If your price/100g is <x>:

(max - <x>)/(max - min)

gives you a spread based from 1 (aka 100%) for the cheapest to 0 for the most expensive. Multiply that by a factor and add that to the taste score ? Or the factor could be the spread between min & max taste scores.

Trial and error. Have a play around.

[drcarlos]

Tried the Aldi specially selected almond topped mince pie tarts an interesting twist on the seasonal fave. Even the wife enjoyed them and she usually dislikes any shop bought mince pie.
It's only in recent years I've started to like them (probably along with when I started to like real ales) as my tastes have changed. It's now nice to partake in the yearly consumption of something I really never liked before.

[Sundayjumper]

On the wider topic of mince pies:

1) I have already tried the Co-op "luxury" mince pies (£2.25 for 6) which were very nice, last weekend we also tried the Co-op "standard" mince pies (£1 for 6) and they were surprisingly decent, really not that far behind and for less than half the price. Good VFM.

2) Can someone go and get Costco mince pies ? I don't have a Costco card any more. They used to do really good mince pies that were *huge*, they were about twice the diameter of normal ones, which must make them 4x the weight pro-rata. It'll be interesting to see how that plays into the VFM.

[Zonda_]

I loathe mince pies but my Dad loved them, it will be very strange not to see him enjoying them this year.

[DeskJockey]

There are many ways to skin a cat ! You'll probably need to try out a few to see what gives you a sensible answer. You might want to add/remove <x> points, or you might want to scale the taste score by some % factor. Depending on the spread of data those might give very different outcomes.

For starters I think I'd try a scale based on min & max costs where the cheapest gets a boost representing VFM. If your price/100g is <x>:

(max - <x>)/(max - min)

gives you a spread based from 1 (aka 100%) for the cheapest to 0 for the most expensive. Multiply that by a factor and add that to the taste score ? Or the factor could be the spread between min & max taste scores.

Trial and error. Have a play around.

Shouldn't the VFM boost be based on taste? So, if a low cost pie tastes really good it gets a boost compared to a more expensive one that tastes about the same. However if the low cost option is awful then it doesn't get a boost as it represents poor value even if the cost is low.

[Explosive Newt]

I hate to interrupt but

AMAZING MINCE PIE ALERT

M&S Cookie Cup Mince Pie

Uses cookie dough pastry and it is out of this world. The mince is on point as well.
I have only seen them sold individually, presumably owing to risk of addiction.

[mik]

@Gavster I wish to reciprocate with wonderful news for you too.