REVIEW - M&S Christmas Spiced Buns

With just one more full day to go until the advent calendar can be opened and Mariah Carey is playing on every radio station, I think it's ok to start reviewing festive treats. We'll ignore the fact that I ate these at the start of November - in my defence I was passing time whilst waiting for a train and they were reduced in the M&S Simply Food store. Although I love nearly all M&S food, I am particularly fond of it when it has a little yellow sticker on it.

I got these reduced 'spiced festive buns' for £1.55 but sadly in my excitement I didn't actually note the original price. I imagine it would be somewhere around the £2 mark, in line with their other similar buns such as the classic 'iced and spiced'. The buns come in packs of two and are described as spiced and fruity iced buns with a sweet brandy sauce centre.

The festive food is upon us

If you're familiar with the M&S 'iced and spiced' buns then you'll find that these are pretty similar - just tweaked slightly for the festive season! The buns are a decent size and have a good strong flavour of spice throughout. They were also still nice and soft, despite reaching their best before date (not that I ever pay much attention to that anyway - but it can sometimes make a difference to the freshness of bakery products). There were a few sultanas scattered throughout but not too many - presumably to make way for the main feature of the bun which the brandy sauce centre. I was a bit apprehensive about this (brandy not being my favourite thing) but I was actually pleasantly surprised. The taste wasn't overpowering and worked really well when paired with the spicy flavour of the bun. There was also a decent amount of it, although it was a little bit unevenly distributed with one half of my bun getting the majority of the sauce.

The white icing on top of the bun was nice and soft but unsurprisingly it is very sweet! The added decoration on top was nicely done - again in true M&S style they've given it some detail and made a simple design look quite effective. I know lots of people don't like glacé cherries but I love them so was pretty happy with that addition.

These are really nice and I'm glad I gave them a try - but I probably won't be buying any more. There's plenty of other festive foods out there that I'm eager to try! These are very similar to the classic M&S bun and if you're not a fan of brandy sauce or spiced buns then there's not much to really sell these to you. Overall it's a 7 out of 10 from me.