Pie Lovers Told Mashed Their Favorite Pie To Eat In The Fall-Exclusive Survey
While Pi(e) Day may be in March, if pie had an official season, it would probably be fall. The main reason for this, of course, is that the year's biggest food holiday falls in fall, and it's one where the de rigueur dessert is always pie. While Thanksgiving dinner has become synonymous with pumpkin pie, it's permissible to have other pies on the dessert table in addition (or even in lieu of) this classic. Swapping out the pie for crinkle cake or vegan dessert dumplings or whatever's trending on TikTok, however, is right out.
Thanksgiving isn't the only time we're in the mood for pie once the weather starts to cool down, however. Summer fruit desserts can be quite light — perhaps nothing more than a bowl of sorbet with a few cookies on the side — but in fall we want something heartier, crustier, and possibly topped with whipped cream. Which ones are our fall favorites, though? Mashed posed this question to 604 pie eaters, offering them a choice of five different types: apple, pecan, pumpkin, sweet potato, and rhubarb. Not to spoil things for you or anything, but the results probably won't come as any surprise whatsoever.
An all-American autumnal pie was the big winner
The favorite pie, pulling fully 1/3 of the votes, was apple, since of course. It's a fall fruit, it's a classic pie, and it's a can't-miss dessert that's guaranteed to please just about everyone. Do it up plain, serve it a la mode, top it with cheese or go trendy with salted caramel, apple pie is one old-fashioned dessert that will never go out of style. Pumpkin, of course, made a strong showing as well, coming in second with just over 30% of the vote. We'd expect that to drop off a bit after Thanksgiving, although in some quarters pumpkin may stick around until Christmas.
If the poll had any (mild) shocker, however, it was the fact that the number three pie, pecan, didn't make a better showing. It did earn nearly 23%, which is pretty good, but we'd have thought pecan was even more popular than that. Sweet potato, however, remains an underrated southern specialty. It polled just shy of 10%, but pumpkin pie fans are advised to give it a try since it's quite similar, although delicious in its own special way. In last place, however, came poor old rhubarb, with just 3% of the vote. We're huge fans of rhubarb pie, ourselves, but it is a fruit (well, technically a vegetable) out of season as it's more of a spring and summer thing.