With a swathe of their pies in our top 20 pies (out of over 600 we have rated) you won’t be surprised to hear we eagerly await any new offering from the number one modern pie shop in London - Piebury Corner. With such a high bar set by their meat and veggie pies, the more recent addition of fruit pies to their selection (albeit not that recently!) was something we were intrigued by. Could Piebury – famed for their football-related pies and puns – still push for the title with their fruit pies? Or was it a case of second season blues – like Leicester City struggling to maintain the form they showed in their previous outing?

Piebury Corner Fruit Pie Review

Well the good news is that these fruit pies are far off mid-table mediocrity! In fact, as fruit pies go, these are some of the better individual fruit pies we’ve pie rated. Gone are the Arsenal-related footballer names (such as the “Thierry Henry” or “Viera-getarian”) and instead you get pies that do exactly what they say on the tin (or in this case, cardboard box) – Apple, Apple and Blackcurrant, Blueberry and Cherry.

Here’s our overall impression of the fruit pie range, followed by some individual comments. Please note that all these pies were heated for 20 minutes in the oven but then eaten as they were – without custard or cream or other additions – to ensure we were rating the pie accurately.



Overall Im-pie-ression:

Piebury Corner Fruit Pie Review

These pies are noticeably quite shallow and wide, but this is the Piebury way! Similar in shape to their meaty teammates, the fruit pies also have a lovely golden pastry shell which particularly crisps up well on top. The main difference: that fine sprinkling of sugar on top of the pastry, which does add that extra sweet taste to an already sweet fruit pie! A couple of the pies we cooked caught slightly and were a bit more golden in some places than others, but overall I’d say this is a nice golden colour.

At £3.50 per pie to take away cold, these certainly aren’t the cheapest fruit pies on the market. But then these aren’t your typical pies on the market either – with a much bigger capacity than most fruit pie boxes you’d buy in the shops and a strong pie capacity as opposed to some of the “fruit” air pies you can get your hands on! I also mention fruit because you can actually see and taste the fruit in these pies, rather than the fruity mush that a lot of fruit pies contain.

Overall, I would say these are a tad expensive for the size, but they are some of the best fruit pies we’ve had on Pierate. The pastry (specifically the lid) is delicious as part of the pie or even eaten on its own. While the content of all the pies is nice and fruity – sweet but generally not too much! They fill the hole and – while I’d suggest you probably wouldn’t want two in one sitting – leave you wanting to try another!

Piebury Corner Apple Pie Review

Apple

The classic fruit pie flavour and done well. Some decent sized pies of fruit – though could perhaps have been a few more large pieces that had a bit more of a bite to them. They were rather soft, so not much to bite onto! The flavour worked well with the crisp sweet pastry. Would definitely want again.

Piebury Corner Apple and Blackcurrant Pie Review

Apple and Blackcurrant

Another classic fruit flavour – the apple was nice but again could have perhaps given a bit more bite to the pie if they were a bit less soft. The blackcurrants were also very noticeable, particularly because the seeds got rather caught in my teeth during the eating of this pie, which spoilt my enjoyment of it a bit. However a good balance to the flavour and in combination with the pastry.

Piebury Corner Blueberry Pie Review

Blueberry

We don’t seem to see many blueberry pies out there on the market, so Pierateer Sam was particularly keen to try this one. While quite sweet, the flavour was very nice and again complimented the crisp pastry well. Well worth getting hold of.

Piebury Corner Cherry Pie Review

Cherry

While perhaps not as famous as the apple pie, the cherry pie is still another regular flavour and the pieces of fruit were very obvious upon slicing through. Quite sweet again, but not overpowering. I’d happily eat another of these.





Overall, while these pies are not going to compete against the Piebury Corner meat pies for our affection, they are very good individual fruit pies that I’d happily enjoy for dessert as part of a “Double Pie” main and pudding option. I’m Gunner have to go back to Piebury Corner and get some more soon!

Piebury Corner Apple Pie
Score: 5.89/7
[Colour 6.5, Capacity 6.25, Consistency 5.75, Condition 6, Chewiness 5.5, Cheapness 5, Content 6.25]

Piebury Corner Apple and Blackcurrant Pie
Score: 5.75/7
[Colour 6.5, Capacity 6.25, Consistency 5.5, Condition 6, Chewiness 5.25, Cheapness 5, Content 5.75]

Piebury Corner Blueberry Pie
Score: 5.89/7
[Colour 6.5, Capacity 6.25, Consistency 5.75, Condition 6, Chewiness 5.5, Cheapness 5, Content 6.25]

Piebury Corner Cherry Pie
Score: 5.82/7
[Colour 6.5, Capacity 6.25, Consistency 5.5, Condition 6, Chewiness 5.25, Cheapness 5, Content 6.25]

RAS

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Start spreading the news… I’m reviewing New York pies today…

Following on from yesterday’s apple pie review from my e-pie-c adventure to the land of the free and home of the sweet pie, the U-S-of-A, here’s part two of my whistle-stop tour of the American pies I ate. Sure I was visiting The Big Apple, but I needed some variety in my pie-t (pie diet) so today’s American pie is…




Petee's Wild Blueberry Pie Review

After diving off the subway and speedily walking along the busy major road that is Delancey Street, I was glad to pull out of the rain and into their quaint little pie shop and see the staff hard at work making delicious looking pies! It’s not the biggest shop – with a few high stools to sit at if required but most customers picking up a pie/slice and leaving – but I appreciated most of the space was needed for pie production. As said in my article yesterday, the Americans have their own interpretation of pie, which often lacks pastry and full encasement. However there were a few options meeting my criteria in Petee’s Pie Shop and I decided to go for something different and choose a wild blueberry pie.

The pie was $5.50 (that’s £4.50 in English money) and again you got a decent slice for your dollar. It seemed pretty much the going rate for a slice of pie from a pie shop round these parts – though I did manage to get a slice for $4.50 at a shop in Brooklyn (more about that later in the week!) Again the price wasn’t terrible for a slice of pie considering the central New York location and it equating to a posh slice of cake in a London deli, but compared to a lot of pies it’s still quite pricey and unlike yesterday’s review they didn’t really have a proper seating area to charge for either.

Instead Petee’s Pie Company focused on the pie. In fact, it was pretty much pie, pie or pie here! Both regular and gluten free, they bake pies for your pleasure! Sure, if you study the menu you will find a few cheesecakes and other goods, along with a selection of beverages, but this is first and foremost a pie shop, not a general bakery. So for this, I commend Petee’s Pie Shop to you and their crazy late opening hours (Midnight or 1am every night of the week)!

In fact you don’t get a recommendation like “The absolute best pie in New York” (via NYMag – New York Magazine) without clearly selling great pies. But perhaps that was on the American definition and appetite for pie that got those remarks, as while the wild blueberry pie was very nice, it didn’t blow me away like the NYMag recommendation had hinted at.

Sure, the fruit was fresh and I thought the pastry held together quite well, but the pastry was a bit dry in places and quite crumbly. While this by no means made it a poor pie – on the contrary it still rates quite highly! - based on pastry alone, this one was third place out of the three pies I had in New York. Still, it's one of the top scoring blueberry pies I've had and I’d like to go back some day and try a few more of their pies, as it was still very nice and I’d enjoy trying their range, but with such a high calibre available it just misses out on a Pierate Recommended score.

Wild Blueberry Pie from Petee’s Pie Company
Score: 4.89/7
[Colour 5.5/7; Consistency 5.5/7; Cheapness 2/7; Chewiness 5/7; Condition 5/7; Content 5.5/7; Capacity 5.75/7]
RAS

Lower Manhattan - Surely there's some pie in there somewhere?!

Summer and Fall of 2016 was American Pie Season at Pierate! Just like London buses you wait a long time for a Pierateer to head stateside and then we go over twice within a couple of months! In August work took Pierateer Sam over the Pond and you can take a look at our Chicago Pie Tour to see where Sam went.

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