Is an $85 apple pie worth it? Our Thanksgiving taste test says … maybe.
Is an $85 apple pie worth it? Our Thanksgiving taste test says … maybe.

We’re not here to get into a debate about what the best type of Thanksgiving pie is. Pecan, pumpkin or sweet potato? You do you. But surely we can all agree on three things: 1) You can never go wrong with a classic apple. 2) There’s no shame in bringing a store-bought pie to the party. And 3) Man, oh, man, are food prices steep right now.

Amid rising grocery prices, Americans will be “shopping smarter” this holiday season, according to Phil Lempert, a food trends expert known as the Supermarket Guru.

“The price of food is greatly impacting Thanksgiving,” he tells Yahoo, which is why grocery stores like Aldi, Kroger and Publix are offering affordably priced holiday meal bundles; Aldi’s version claims to feed up to 10 people for just $40. “People are much more conscious of value,” Lempert says.

But, you know, it had better taste good too. To find out whether the cost and convenience of a bargain store-bought apple pie trumps the flavor, fancy ingredients and pedigree of a gourmet mail-order version, we dug out our forks (and our blindfolds) for a good old-fashioned taste test.

How we tested

Because I can’t resist a taste test, I volunteered to try three apple pies alongside two other New York-based Yahoo employees: Yahoo Finance producer Jacob Labombarda and senior real estate and workplace coordinator Daisy Sweet. (It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.)

Each of us was blindfolded and handed a forkful of three pies: Marie Callender’s Lattice Apple Pie, which retails for around $8 at grocery stores, David’s Cookies Grandé Apple Pie, which comes in a pack of two on Amazon for $57.99 (around $30 per pie), and Petee’s Pie Company’s Hudson Valley apple pie, shipped nationwide via Goldbelly (which features a quote from New York magazine declaring it the “absolute best pie” in the city) for $85.

All three pies arrived fully assembled but frozen. Yahoo News senior producer Tiara Chiaramonte takes on the task of baking them at home; Labombarda, Sweet and I have the easier job of simply eating them. The hard part comes in when we’re asked to determine which pie is the most expensive — a challenge that two out of three of us failed, as seen in the video below.

What we found

Each of us had specific standards of a good pie going into the tasting. While we all made it clear that a flaky, buttery pie crust was a must, we had differing views on the apple filling. Sweet says she prefers something super sweet (no pun intended) inside. Labombarda doesn’t like overly sweet filling, and I favor a strong cinnamon flavor with a good crispy bite to the fruit. And when we tasted each pie, we didn’t really see eye to eye.

A bite of crispy apples stood out to me from pie No. 1, while Sweet said that the crust overwhelmed any significant apple flavor. Labombarda compared it to a McDonald’s apple pie he’d recently eaten.

Pie No. 2 had a more significant fall spice flavor, more in line with my tastes. Labombarda found the filling too sugary but liked that it was moist and gave points for the crust. “I like the way the crust flakes off on this one,” he said. Sweet felt that the apples were the standout on this one. “Sweet, crunchy and kind of perfect,” she said. Both she and I preferred pie No. 2 to the first one.

Then, we were onto pie no. 3. “That tastes like apple sauce in [a] crust,” I said, immediately noticing that fuller pieces of crispy apples were missing from this one. For me, that knocked it down a peg. Sweet, however, didn’t mind it. “Having something that's just perfectly mashed up inside of the pie makes me think it’s a perfect pie,” she said. “When it’s in my mouth, I can taste Thanksgiving.”

Labombarda wasn’t a fan. “I get kind of a meaty, salty taste,” he said.

Ultimately, Sweet’s taste buds steered her in the right direction, as she correctly guessed that pie No. 3 was the $85 Petee’s Pie. Both Labombarda and I, on the other hand, went with pie No. 2, which turned out to be the $30 one from David’s Cookies.

“I think I have cheap taste,” I said. “I don’t know that there is a pie that I think is worth $85. … I’m gonna go to the grocery store and get the $8 pie.”

What the expert says

Lempert agreed that most people aren’t going to splurge on an apple pie. And if they do, “they’re going to get an already-baked apple pie from a local bakery,” he says, instead of having a frozen one mail-ordered.

Sure, the Petee’s Pie Company version included some favored ingredients like organic apples and real butter. But people are likely to judge a pie on mouthfeel and taste, according to Lempert, which, at the end of the day, might not even matter too much when you consider how the apple pie will be served.

“When it comes to apple pie, a lot of people put either ice cream or melted cheddar cheese on top. So you’re really changing the texture and the flavor of it based on what the topping is,” says Lempert. “In that case, Marie Callender’s is fine.”

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