Arguably the crowning glory of festive celebrations, you should never settle for a second rate Christmas pudding. Luckily for you our team of intrepid taste testers put the supermarkets’ offerings to the sword.

Morrisons

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Morrisons M Signature cherry crowned Christmas Pudding (454g, £4)

Mate, that’s a sweet pudding. In every sense of the word. It looks cute with its glistening cherries, it’s syrupy and slips right down.

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Lidl

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Snowy Lodge luxury six month matured Christmas Pudding (454g, £2.99)

About the right mixture of texture and flavour and does the job with minimal fanfare. You won’t talk about it for days after but neither will it let you down. The James Milner of Christmas puddings.

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Tesco

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Finest Christmas Pudding (454g, £4)

Tesco’s pud ticks the box marked ‘traditional’ and gets the balance about right. It’s a tad dry but soaked in brandy and set on fire, it is probably just the ticket. All-but-one of our reviewers had a tepid response to this dessert, but one went out on a limb to say: “It’s not hyperbole to suggest – had they celebrated Christmas – the gods of Mount Olympus would be tucking into this pudding every December before Only Fools and Horses. A true triumph.” It certainly is hyperbole.

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Sainsbury’s

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Taste the Difference 18 month matured Christmas Pudding laced with cognac (900g, £12)

Giant nuts and larger than average fruit went some way to recommending an otherwise forgettable pudding from Sainsbury’s. One reviewer wrote: “Perhaps it was a design by committee not wanting to be too rich or too full of this and that. The only memorable thing about is the claggy film it’s left around the inside of my mouth.”

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Iceland

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Luxury 9 months matured Christmas Pudding laced with cider, brandy, sherry and rum (454g, £2.99)

Labelled distainfully as ‘hot wet raisins’ but one taster and ‘basically chewy brandy’ by another. Iceland’s is a classic pudding, though, so worth a punt if you’re after that home-made feel without making your own. One tester wrote: “The kind of traditional pudding your nan might have made when you were a kid, the kind you would have hoped to find a foil-wrapped 20p piece in.”

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Waitrose

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Christmas Signature Spice Fruited Sponge Pudding  (800g, £10)

Sticky and orange and sweet. You’ll want to lick the bowl out and it’s rich enough to push you into a long Christmas Day slumber if you serve it after the turkey. It’s spicyness and orangeyness were, frankly, too much for some.

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Marks and Spencer

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Intensely fruity Christmas Pudding (907g, £7.50)

This one got stuck in the pot and when it came out was squidgy and booze-soaked, like Uncle Monty in Withnail and I. Yet, it struck a chord with a number of the reviewers.

“It was like there was a party in my mouth and everyone was invited. Not massively sweet, but it was OK because it gave it a very casual, very French feel. Quite insouciant, if you will,” wrote one.

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Asda

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Extra Special 9 months matured Luxury Christmas Pudding (454g, £3)

Oh dear. This plain, dry and miserable little pudding rubbed our panel up the wrong way, for sure.

“Budget fruit cake covered in treacle, topped off by a slight metallic after taste,” said one.

Another wrote: “Christmas pudding is supposed to taste like Christmas. This left an unpleasant taste that made me feel sad and confused , like January 13.”

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Aldi

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Specially Selected Golden topped Christmas Pudding finished with edible gold glitter (907g, £8.99)

All that glitters really is gold. Aldi’s golden pudding was a cut above with an abundance of juicy fruits, glace cherries and syrupy sweetness. It may have cut terribly but so did Barry McGuigan and he was great too. One reviewer commented: “Deliciously sweet Christmas pudding with a festive aroma too match. Nuts and berries blend perfectly with a generous helping of alcohol.”

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