Taste Test

Taste test: Christmas cake

The best Christmas cake evaluated, including Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Morrison’s

15 Dec 2011

Waitrose Richly Fruited Xmas Cake. £16.99 ●●●● Nicely decorated and complete with an edible icing snowflake, this cake has a balanced and suitably delicious compliment of cake, icing and marzipan and is packed with fruit. Broughton Deli…

Taste test: Cranberry sauce

The best cranberry sauces from Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Morrison’s and more

13 Dec 2011

Hopetoun / Mrs. Bridges Cranberry Sauce with Port ●● This sauce from Mrs Bridges is so sweet and sugary, it’s a bit like eating your roast turkey with a side-order of jam. It does contain whole cranberries, but it just wasn’t saucy enough for our taste…

Taste test: Truffles

The best truffles from Waitrose, Peckham’s, Thorntons and more

13 Dec 2011

Seriously Chocolatey Truffles, Waitrose ●●● We like the creamy texture of these truffles from Waitrose, but sadly the taste doesn’t quite live up to the name. The flavour fails to pack a punch, though they are quite boozy – perhaps even a little too…

Taste test: Mince pies

The best mince pies evaluated from Peckhams, Tesco, Marks And Spencer and more

13 Dec 2011

Peckhams Mince Pies ●●●● Fluffy pastry and a top-notch mincemeat filling make this a tasty treat from one of Scotland’s best deli staples. Sure, the pastry may seem heavy to some, but it is Christmas, so why not indulge yourself? Tesco Mince Pies…

Taste test: Champagne

The best champagne evaluated, from Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Moet And Chandon, Tattinger and Waitrose

13 Dec 2011

Sainsbury’s Blanc De Blancs Champagne ●●● This is a light, if slightly forgettable offering from Sainsbury’s, but as a reasonably priced bottle of fizz, it’s decent enough bang for your buck. Morrisons Champagne Brut ●● There’s something a tad…

Taste test: Christmas Pudding

We track down the best from M&S, Lakeland, Coles and Tesco

28 Oct 2011

Marks & Spencer Classic Christmas Pudding £3.99 ●● This pudding does the job, but won’t make you too jolly. It has the bitterness of peel running through it, giving it the flavour of a fruitcake, is densely packed with raisins and there’s not a lot…

Taste test: The Scottish Café and Restaurant

10 Nov 2009

Porridge with berries and heather honey Porridge needn’t be grey wallpaper paste served as punishment. Salt should be included judiciously when cooking (as with bread), but John Knox doesn’t birl in his grave if you put sugar on it – though berries…

Taste test: Vodka made in Scotland

It's not all whisky here

22 Oct 2009

Grafitti, Pincer, Glen's, Blackwood's, Straight Strawberry, Raspberry Vodka

Taste test: Scottish-grown apples

Finding the very best potato of the sky

1 Oct 2009

Charles Ross October is the time for apples in Scotland – for this month at least you can stop buying the few familiar types of imported apple and choose from the hundreds of native varieties growing in orchards, parks and back gardens near you. The…

Taste Test - Edible flowers

10 Sep 2009

Nasturtium With their brilliant sunset colours and distinct peppery flavour, these are probably the most popular edible flower. They’re very easy to grow from seed and are common on the fringes of veg patches or hanging baskets. The flowers have a…

Taste Test: Biscuits

23 Jul 2009

Duchy Original’s Sweet Oaten and Heather Honey • 12 biscuits (150g) for £1.99 With the Duchy crest stamp there’s an refined elegance to this one, though whether it’s more than an upmarket digestive is open to question. As with a number of Duchy…

Taste Test: Cider

9 Jul 2009

Thistly Cross Cider Belhaven Fruit Farm, from Edinburgh Farmers’ Market and Cornelius Beers and Wines, 18–20 Easter Road, Edinburgh, £2.70 •••• Scotland’s first cider from the makers of Belhaven Fruit Ice, this cider is described as ‘Scottish and…

Taste Test - Energy food for cycling

11 Jun 2009

Banana £0.30, fruit shops everywhere. ••••• Good old-fashioned natural food and what all energy products are trying to recreate in their caffeine or carbohydrate pumped products. Combinations of carbohydrates and B vitamins in bananas give a huge…

Taste Test - Delis

2 Apr 2009

Earthy 33–41 Ratcliffe Terrace, Edinburgh, 0131 667 2967, www.earthy.co.uk Mon–Fri 8.30am–7.30pm; Sat 8.30am–6pm; Sun 10am–5pm. This indie supermarket sells fairly-traded, local, seasonal and organic produce, from in and around Edinburgh. Choose…

Taste Test - Sandwiches

19 Mar 2009

Pret a Manger www.pret.com for info Although they did once make the mistake of marketing a tongue sandwich for Valentine’s Day, Simon Hargraves, Pret’s Director of Food and Communication, admits that the classics always sell the best, with their…

Taste test - Scottish Honey

5 Mar 2009

Honeyhill Bee Farm’s Scottish Heather Honey 454g, £5.49 at Peckhams With its toffee consistency, dark colour and distinctive rich taste, heather honey is one of Scotland’s unique foods, with bees spending July and August in the Grampian foothills…

Taste Test - Water

22 Jan 2009

Highland Spring - Still Spring Water ••• Various stockists, 330ml glass bottle around £1.30. Filtered through land certified as organic by the Soil Association, this is pleasant without being remarkable. While being a refreshing drink, it didn’t…

Taste Test - Christmas cake alternatives

11 Dec 2008

Stollen Margiotta, Edinburgh, www.margiotta.co.uk; also available at the Glasgow and Edinburgh Christmas markets, £4.69 per cake. A traditional German bread-like fruitcake, this loaf represents baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes. A strong…

Taste Test - Instant porridge

27 Nov 2008

Ready Brek Original • Various stockists including Tesco, Morrisons and Asda. £1.89 for 750g. Tasting like mushy Weetabix and looking a lot like Polyfilla, this soggy and bland excuse for porridge is awful. Its one redeeming feature, a smooth and…

Taste Test - White beers

13 Nov 2008

Black Isle Organic Wheat Beer, Colomba, Grolsch Weizen, Konig Ludwig, Hefe Weizen, Weihenstephaner Dunkelweiss

Taste test - Chicken Tikka Masala

30 Oct 2008

McLeish Brothers, Lidl, Mother India, Tesco, Caledonian Curry Company, Marks & Spencer

Taste test - Halloween vegetables

16 Oct 2008

Pumpkin Maybe it’s the colour or maybe it’s the size but pumpkins are becoming demonised as the embodiment of America’s crass commercialisation of Halloween. It’s not even that they’re imported: most of those in the shops are British grown. Makes for…

Taste test - Tea

2 Oct 2008

China Green Tea from Dragonfly Tea, Happiness Tea from Today Was Fun, Yunnan from Twinings Light Classics range, Yerba Maté from Mr Scruff’s Make Us a Brew Tea Company, Rose Tea from Brewhaha, White Tea from Tea Tree Tea

Taste Test - Carrots: Organic v Non-organic

18 Sep 2008

After potatoes, carrots are our most consumed vegetable; they are also a stalwart of the organic vegetable box scheme, so we decided to see what difference we could find locally available carrots. These ones came from a decent dedicated local…

Big taste test

Big Brother

5 Sep 2008

The 'Big Brother' housemates have been challenged to complete a taste testing task. The excited finalists gathered on the sofas to hear about the challenge, and were thrilled to hear there was a reward in store for the contestant who scored the highest…