A Cosy Autumnal Sunday Treat - Marks and Spencer Gingerbread Swirl

It's getting cold, it's getting wintery and I love it. I love the spices and flavours you get around this time of year and am already anticipating my first Starbucks gingerbread latte of the season. To tide me over until then I treated myself to one of the new items in Marks and Spencer's In Store bakery: a gingerbread swirl.

It's essentially the same kind of pastry you have for something like a pain aux raisins. Flaky, buttery with a beautiful texture combination of crunchy outer and soft, squidgy inner. Instead of raisins however, gingerbread is the theme. It might not be authentically French but it's a nice seasonal twist on a classic. The swirl is coated with a light layer of a gingerbread glaze and there's also little pockets of a kind of gingerbread flavoured creme patisserie inside too.

It's not a full on sticky gingerbread taste but rather the scents and spices that are used in gingerbread with tones of ginger, nutmeg and cloves. All warming, wintery spices that have that 'Christmassy' smell. It's not overly sweet either as it's a pastry rather than a cake. It's a subtle gingerbread flavour rather than being dominant. The rich, crumbly pastry is the focus here and the high quality ingredients shine through with a real melt in the mouth flavour.

It's definitely more of a breakfast product rather than a pudding or something for afternoon tea because the flavour is quite subtle and it's not particularly sweet. However, for a real wintery treat of a breakfast, this served with a warming mug of coffee or hot chocolate is perfect. I heated it in the oven to really emphasise the spicy aromas and it paired beautifully with my coffee.

Waitrose Lemon and Sultana Danish

During my last trip to Waitrose, I was so impressed by the beautiful sweet treats at the patisserie counter. So many plump, juicy buns studded with fruit and elegant and sophisticated pastries. It was a tough choice but I eventually went for a lemon and sultana Danish. They looked so inviting with a generous serving size, an attractive swirly appearance and lots of visible lemon icing and juicy fruit.

Sorry, I even took a picture of the box from the Patisserie counter as I thought it was so beautiful. It makes just a simple cake feel like a premium gift from a boutique!

I took this back home and had it as an utterly indulgent treat with a cup of tea. And utterly indulgent is the only way to describe this. At over 500 calories, with 34g of sugar, this really is something that should be definitely filed under 'occasional treat'. But at the same time, it was so delicious I didn't feel remotely guilty. If you're going to splurge, make it on something worthwhile like this.

With real butter and high quality ingredients, this sublimely melts in the mouth, coating your tongue in a sweet, rich flavour with the fresh zest of lemons. It's sweet and naughty but not sickly and the bountiful inclusion of sweet, sticky, swollen sultanas add further bursts of sweet juiciness.

The pastry had the most beautiful texture. Fluffy, soft and unbelievably buttery. It was again rich and decadent. Sometimes Chelsea buns and this kind of pastry can be a bit bread and cake like but that certainly wasn't the case here. This was as good as anything from a real baker or patisserie and probably better than most too.

As I said, it is 500+ calories but you could easily split it across the two swirls and each would still be a good portion size. This easy so delicious though that I just ate the whole thing and just went to the gym a bit more instead!

Price: £1.35
Available: Waitrose

Pros: Generous portion size, great quality ingredients, rich, sweet and indulgent
Cons: Definitely not kind to your waistline

Score: 9/10