What’s going on? You wait ages for a Head To Head review and two come along at once! The second category is a festive favourite of mine, Stollen.
There’s only one rule for this Head To Head: No full Stollen, bites or slices only.
Mr Kipling Stollen Slices
(£2 for 6 slices)
I’m starting with a man who did very poorly in the last Head To Head, Mr Kipling.
A rich fruit cake slice made with sultanas, raisins and cranberries, a hint of rum and a moist layer of marzipan, topped with a light dusting of sweet snow.
His slices were fairly even in size with a light dusting of sugar and lots of protruding fruits. They smelt of nothing but marzipan to be honest!
My first bite, taken from the end, had a lovely and strong fruity flavour. The rest of the slice was not good.
There isn’t that much marzipan but it’s too much regardless. I don’t know if the marzipan has seeped into the cake or the cakes are actually just completely underbaked but they were so soft and soggy they felt and tasted raw. Maybe it’s a bad box but they were that unpleasant I’m not going to waste money buying more to find out.
Sainsburys 6 Stollen Slices
(£2.50 for 6)
Sainsburys Stollen are in slices too and they’re part of Sainsbury’s standard range.
Stollen cake slices made with vine fruits and mixed citrus peel. Layered with marzipan filling, dipped in rum butter and dusted with sugar.
The slices were a lot shorter and fatter and were smothered, not covered, in powdered sugar. I couldn’t smell any marzipan here – just the sweet smell of rum.
They are firmer and chewier, much more in line with the stollen I’m used to even down to the powdered sugar moustache you’re left with!
The flavour wasn’t quite right though. The marzipan tasted like the 3 inch icing everyone had on their birthday cakes as a child. No lovely almond flavour, just sugar. And lots of it. Better than Mr.Kipling but miles off what I’m after.
Waitrose 6 Stollen Slices
(£3 for 6)
Waitrose Stollen Slices are a bit more expensive but I’m not surprised and they too are “standard”.
6 slices full of succulent vine fruits and glacé cherries, with marzipan filling, covered in rum butter and sugar dusting.
Funnily enough they look nearly as identical to the Sainsburys slices as their descriptions are and they smelt just as rum soaked…
Thankfully they don’t taste quite the same though, they’re kind of a cross between the Mr.Kipling and the Sainsburys! They’re very soft and chewy and have a huuuuge layer of marzipan but there is a real distinction between that and the soft squidgy cakes. No raw feeling dough here!
The marzipan has a much nicer flavour too, it’s suprisingly subtle against the delicious juicy fruits and the strong, strong rum! I’m surprised they could even sell these without I.D! A tasty more grown up slice for sure.
Morrisons 6 Stollen Cake Slices
Co-Op 9 Mini Stollen Bites
(£2 for 9 bites)
Co-Op have Stollen Bites, they’re half the size (if that) but they are a little bit cheaper and you don’t feel such a greedy pig if you eat 9 mini bites rather than 6 slices of cake!
Continental fruit bread bites with sultanas, currants and marzipan dipped in butter and coated with a sweet dusting.
They’re quite chunky fat little bites to be fair, they smelt delicious and not soley of marzipan!
They don’t half pack a lot of flavour in these bites. Each one has a slightly different taste depending on the amount of marzipan. The first I ate had more and so had a lovely sweet almond flavour alongside the juicy bursts from the fruit. The second had a lot less marzipan so I got to try the cake/fruit bread and it was lovely, soft and squidgy and not dry at all. I’d even go so far as saying the dreaded moist word!
Lovely! It seems you get more bang for your buck in these tiny bites than their bigger brothers.
Morrisons 6 Stollen Slices
(£1.75 for 6)
I hoped I’d saved the best till last, if not at least I’d saved the cheapest! Once again with Morrisons there’s no overly gushing description:
Light fruit cake with rum, a layer of marzipan and sprinkled with a dusting of sugar snow.
It is what it is.
They might have been the cheapest but they’re by far the biggest. I’m not a complete pig, the left over slices go into a sealed box to be eaten later and the Morrisons slices are nearly twice the size of the Sainsburys and Waitrose.
Yes! This is what I was waiting for! They’re soft, squidgy and deliciously moist with big sweet juicy currants and sultanas and the odd orange peel here and there.
The marzipan blends with the cake, not like how the soaked through raw feeling Mr. Kiplings did, but nicely with no discernible difference in texture between that and the cake. The marzipan is really nice actually, sweet with a lovely almond flavour. The rum’s subtle, just a touch but it’s there and just as good as everything else.
Are they better than my most favourite stollen of all time, the KuchenMeister? Not quite. But they’re the nicest U.K supermarket slice I’ve tried and tied with the bites for best today!
Tesco Stollen
You’ll be waiting for that one! In no world am I paying £4 for 6 tiny slices of cake!
One Treat At A Time 
I’m not sure if you have a Booths supermarket near you but their stollen bites are absolutely amazing! Failing that I really rate the M&S stollen slices too.
Oh! I’m in London so no Booths unfortunately. That’s probably why there were none left in my M&S then if they’re good, I’ll have to go and have another look, thanks for the heads up! 😊
I know that it’s old post but the first stollen tasted exactly how they are suppose to. They are suppose to taste little bit soggy, juicy and underbake because they contain marzipan, lot of butter and fruit pieces. They are not suppose to taste hard, dry and be crumbly like biscuits.