Christmas has come and gone. The presents are not what they once were. Yes, socks again this year. Useful, sure, but not exactly the sort of thing that makes you sit up like a Labrador hearing a biscuit tin.
Still, presents aren’t the bit that’s shifted the most. It’s the small rituals. The predictable little purchases that turn up every December, the ones you don’t even think about because they’ve always been… fine.
For us, Lidl is part of that routine. Every year, we buy the same three things:
- Lidl Favorina Marzipan Stollen Bites
- Lidl’s Christmas Pudding
- Lidl’s Christmas Cake
It’s not glamorous. It’s not curated. It’s just a dependable trio of festive sugar and dried fruit that usually does the job.
This year, two of them didn’t.
The Stollen Bites: Where ‘Stollen’ Has Been ‘Stolen’
The Favorina Marzipan Stollen Bites have always been a reliable little hit. Not life-changing, not magic, but solid. A decent chew, a proper marzipan note, and enough festive spice to convince your brain it’s December even if it’s raining sideways.
This year, they tasted like someone had turned down the flavour. Not ruined, not inedible. Just… muted. Like the marzipan had been replaced by the memory of marzipan. The whole thing felt flatter, missing that rich, almondy edge that makes stollen worth bothering with.
If you’ve eaten them for years, you’ll notice. If you’re new to them, you might shrug and get on with your day. That’s part of the problem.
The Christmas Pudding: Perfectly Fine, Which Is Not the Point
Next up, the Christmas pudding. Normally, Lidl’s version sits comfortably in the “surprisingly decent for the price” category. You expect it to be a bit mass-produced, and it is, but it usually carries enough depth to feel festive rather than just brown and sticky.
This year was average. The sort of pudding you could serve, and nobody would complain, but nobody would talk about it either. The flavour wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t much. The fruit and spice were there in a technical sense, but it didn’t have the punch or richness you want from a Christmas pudding. It tasted like a compromise.
And a Christmas pudding is meant to be many things. A compromise is not one of them.
The Christmas Cake: OK, Just
The Christmas cake was the best of the bunch, which is faint praise but still praise. It was OK, just. It did what a Christmas cake should do: dense, sweet, fruity, and vaguely boozy, if you squint hard enough.
No fireworks. No heartbreak. It was simply the one item that didn’t feel like it had been quietly adjusted.
Shrinkflation’s Nasty Cousin
We’ve all clocked shrinkflation by now. Same packaging, same price, less product. You blink, and your chocolate bar has the proportions of a postage stamp.
But this feels like something else.
Ingredilution (noun): when a product keeps the same price and the same look, but the recipe gets watered down so the flavour quietly disappears.
This is Ingredilution.
It’s not smaller. It’s just worse. Less spice. Less richness. Less of whatever made it worth buying in the first place. It’s the sort of change you can’t prove in the aisle, but you can taste at home when you’re already committed.
And because it’s subtle, it’s easy to dismiss. Maybe you’re imagining it. Maybe your tastebuds are tired. Maybe you’ve just eaten too many Quality Street.
Or maybe the recipe’s been “optimised” by someone with a spreadsheet and no soul.
So, Are They Still Worth It?
If you’re already buying these every year out of habit, this year’s versions feel like a step down. Not a dramatic collapse, just a noticeable slide into blandness. The cake survives. The other two feel like they’ve been nudged from “decent festive treat” to “edible beige”.
Which is why this is going where it belongs.
Filed under: Basic.