Christmas isn’t complete without crumbly, fruity, sweet mince pies. Warm them in the oven, douse them in cream and devour them in front of a cosy fire. We taste tested classic mince pies and alternative flavours such as salted caramel and sour cherry to find Christmas 2018's winners. So if you're buying them rather than making them, read on...

Aldi’s traditional mince pie uses Courvoisier cognac to flavour the fruit, which gives the filling a punchy, boozy flavour – just how it should be. The pastry is a little on the thick side, but altogether it’s a good mince pie.

The classic mince pies from ASDA, filled with spiced fruits, ruby port and French brandy, are rich yet still manage to be light and fruity – we suspect due to the generous helping of golden raisins in the filling. It’s one of our favourites, because it has a near perfect pastry-to-filling ratio.

The Tesco Finest Spiced Rum Mince Pies are attractive contenders, topped with pretty lattice and dusting of sugar. The pastry could be a little more crumbly but the mincemeat filling is suitably rich, sweet and spicy. Beware – they’re incredibly heavy on the rum.

The Sainsbury’s stollen mince pies are a nice size and smell delicious, however on tasting we discovered they're more of a marzipan tart than mince pie. They’re heavy on the stollen filling, with very little mincemeat. They’re also a little on the dry side, so we recommend enjoying these with a large cup of tea.

The attractive thick swirl of buttercream on these mince pies is alluring. However, we found the topping to be too sweet, like cake icing, and dominating the pie's flavour. The pastry is decent and the fruit filling pleasantly spiced, but we need more mincemeat to stand up to the quantity of buttercream. If you’re a big fan of cake icing though, these mince pies are for you.

On cutting into the Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference All Butter Mince Pies, the pastry-to-filling ratio is excellent. They are well-filled with plump, juicy fruit with a strong citrus flavour. If we have to give them one criticism, the pastry could be a little crisper.

The Black Forest Mince Pies from Aldi have an attractive appearance and we liked the idea of a black forest filling and chocolate pastry. However, the fruit filling, due to its lack of spice, more closely resembles a tart than a mince pie and is a little on the sparse side too.

If you’re a fan of candy peel, Co-op’s traditional mince pies have ample amounts. We would like the pastry to have a little more crumble and flavour, and the filling to have something extra – more spice or more booze. However, if these were handed to us at a party we wouldn’t say no.

The Aldi Specially Selected Salted Caramel Flavoured Mince Pies strike a good balance: you can clearly taste the salted caramel but it doesn’t mask the mincemeat flavour and texture. We would like the caramel to be a little more salted, but still expect they would be delicious paired with dry Champagne or sherry.

The M&S All Butter Mince Pies have crisp, shortbread-like pastry with an attractive star detail on top, but there is too much of it relative to mincemeat. Also, we tend to prefer our fruit filling more moist and heavier on spice.

Mince pies and brandy butter are a perfect duo and these cute mince pies topped with frosting certainly look appealing. However, they are a little buttercream heavy, and we would like to be able to distinguish crisp pastry and a generous serving of mincemeat. The buttercream also needs a touch more brandy.

We love Waitrose's Heston Chocolate and Sour Cherry Crumble Mince Pies. The filling and pastry are well-proportioned and flavoursome. However, the crumbly texture is closer to a rocky road and the flavour reminiscent of a black forest gateau. But they're a great alternative for someone who's not a huge fan of traditional mince pies.

The M&S frangipane mince pie, with its distinct layers of juicy mincemeat, properly almondy frangipane and buttery pastry, is similar enough to a mince pie to still warrant the name. Best of all, it’s not too sweet (so you can go back for another). We will definitely be buying more of these.

The Waitrose All Butter Mince Pies win the prize for best pastry. The pie is crisp and crumbly, like the texture of shortbread. However, we found the filling, which contains apricot, glacé cherries, almonds and brandy, a little too sweet and lacking depth of flavour.

The Iceland Luxury Mince Pies are the winners of our best filling category and they're also the overall winners. The mince pies rate highly on spice and citrus notes, and are full of juicy, brandy-soaked fruit. The pastry, although not very buttery, doesn’t taste artificial – as shop-bought pastry often does – and has a good crumble.

Want to make your own mince pies? Try Mat Follas' recipe