Greggs meat festive bake vs vegan festive bake

Lancashire Post

With Greggs famous festive bake back in stores for the Christmas period, I did a side-by side taste test comparison to see how the two pastry treats stack up against one another...

Transcript

00:00I hope my name's Jack Marshall, I'm a digital reporter for the Metro World Titles, and I

00:09am coming to you from the glamorous location of my car. Now, today we're doing something

00:14which is a bit of a review of a go-to place which countless people have tried in the past.

00:19Countless of us will have bobbed in there when we're out doing a shopping on a Sunday

00:23or a Saturday, you go in for a quick buy, it's an absolute classic, it's a go-to, it's

00:27come to dominate the British high street, and that is Greggs. Now, when we're talking

00:32Greggs and the festive period, there really is one go-to, and that's the festive bake.

00:36So I thought, what better way to kind of start the festive season and really kick off that

00:40Christmassy feel in terms of food and drink than by sampling Greggs festive bake and also

00:46trying the vegan one as well, just to see how they compare, see what they taste like.

00:50I've never had one before in my life, obviously when I go to Greggs I'm a pretty strong adherent

00:54to the classic sausage roll, steak bake, maybe a slice of pizza every now and again

00:57kind of thing. I've never had anything of the festive menu. I didn't even try the vegan

01:02sausage roll when that first came out, just never went, never felt a need to try it to

01:07be honest, never thought, right, how can they improve on the sausage roll? So anyway, I

01:11thought I'd go for these, try it out. The festive bake itself, let's open it up and

01:16take a look. Pretty freshly cooked, so that's nice and warm. I'm getting the bag.

01:30There we have it. And now they say it's got like a crumb on the outside of the lattice

01:35pastry and inside it's got chicken, it's got a bit of sage and onion stuffing, it's got

01:40some cranberry sauce, it's got some bacon as well. Yeah, it's pretty festive. It's kind

01:45of got a lot of the elements from, you know, a classic Christmas dinner really, but in

01:52Greggs pastry form. So what better way to kind of celebrate than by having a bash? It's

01:57really warm. I'm wary of taking a massive mouthful of this and burning my mouth, but

02:00let's have a go. First of all, it smells incredible. You can really notice how the

02:08crumb on the outside of the pastry is much different to the normal Greggs pastry, which

02:12is often very flaky and buttery. This has definitely got a herby nature to it.

02:22The stuffing's really coming through.

02:28It's quite nice. It's quite nice. I'm not really getting much cranberry. Yeah.

02:32Mmm. I'm getting a lot of the chicken, a lot of stuffing. That's a really nice flavour

02:43actually. The sage and onion stuffing, that's good. Yeah, I feel like it could do with more

02:47cranberry. Yeah, it's kind of flattened out a bit. You can see bits of bacon in there

02:52as well. It's quite nice actually. I don't know if it is enough to tempt me away from

02:57my classic steak bake, but it's quite good. I'll have one more bash and then we'll try

03:01the vegan one. Mmm. A bit more cranberry in that one. That's quite good. I think the

03:12overwhelming flavour there is the sage and onion stuffing. A bit of cranberry in that

03:18last bite, but that hasn't really seeped to the edges. The crumb on top of the pastry

03:22is really standing out as well. They're the predominant things. That's pretty good. It's

03:26okay. I won't go crazy. Now, this is my first ever vegan product at all from Gregg's. Now,

03:34if you look at it, it looks slightly more anemic than the other one, which, yeah. I'm

03:41not going to judge it on that though. Let's have a bash. Oh, this one, by the way, literally

03:46took the food out of my mouth. This one, by the way, is completely the same as that one,

03:49except obviously instead of bacon, it uses fake bacon, corn bacon, and instead of chicken,

03:54it uses quail and chicken. So, pretty much the same thing, just no meat.

04:05Getting a lot more of the cranberry straight away.

04:10The taste is pretty similar. The other one tastes the same, but just stronger.

04:15So, this one has got a very similar flavour profile, but just not as punchy in its flavours.

04:24And this one also feels like it's been sat in the Gregg's counter for a lot longer than that one.

04:29That one's definitely fresher. So, these might not be selling like hotcakes like those.

04:36It's okay. I'm not going to say this has converted me into a vegan in any way,

04:42shape or form. I'm definitely sticking with that one. But yeah, it's okay. It does have

04:48the slight taste of like Linda McCartney sausages to it, which is okay. Linda McCartney sausages

04:53are solid. But yeah, it's not blowing me away, but it's okay. It's okay.

05:02Yeah, the best way to describe that

05:07is just a lesser version of this one. So, with the meaty one, it's just very melted and,

05:14you know, it just has more flavour profiles, more variation there, whereas with the vegan one,

05:19it's very samey. Not much is coming through on its own to give it a flavour, just kind of

05:25merging into one kind of sagey onion, slightly Christmassy flavour palette without much happiness

05:34and joy. So, yeah. Anyway, we'll leave it there. That's my first ever experience of Gregg's festive

05:42bakes. Let me know what you think about them. Let me know if it's a go-to every Christmas where

05:45you've got to pick yourself up one as soon as they hit the stores. Let me know if you think

05:49the vegan one's better. Let me know if you're a vegan yourself and you think it's the greatest

05:53thing known to man that Gregg's have started doing vegan food. We want to hear from you. Let us know

05:57your thoughts. Thanks for watching. Appreciate you checking us out and have a Merry Christmas. Cheers!

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