With a recent study stating that three out of four Americans prefer homemade pie and the 4th of July holiday quickly approaching, an office wide test of the taste buds had to be conducted.

I was given the entertaining job of making and buying apple pies and had to bring them to the office so a comparison could be done. Not only would taste be factored in, but time spent and cost too.

I started with the easiest of the options, the store bought pie. There were two options in the bakery, a crusted top and a Dutch style pie. Though the pies were cheap, on sale for the holiday weekend at 2 for $6, they were what you would expect. Pretty good, but generic. One co-worker even stated that her slice had a metallic taste to it, most likely due to the tin pans the pies were baked in.

As for the pies from scratch, I decided to try my hand at the homemade crust first. I searched the Internet and found a recipe that required few ingredients and explained the process simply; exactly what I needed, having never made a pie before. From peeling the apples to placing the pie in the oven, the process took about one and a half hours. Also, unlike its store bought counterpart, I used a glass pie baking dish for mine. A handy and cheap investment, only costing $3.89.

The next pie was made with the store bought crust, and it was even easier. I prepared the filling and decided to give this pie a little something extra since I cheated on the crust. Stirring together sugar, cinnamon and a few other ingredients, I had a streusel topping in no time, and it was going to give the homemade feel I was looking for. And it was sure to give the store bakery’s Dutch style pie a run for its money.

Overall, this is how the pies measured up:

The store bought pies were on sale at 2 for $6, but they weren’t exceptional in terms of taste and seeing that the hardest part was walking to the bakery, the process seemed a little too easy.

The next pie, which had a homemade crust, came to a grand total of $12.46 and took one and a half hours to prepare. This recipe was simple and only took a surprising nine ingredients!

The last pie, made with the store bought crust, shaved off 15 minutes in prep time, only using an hour and 15 to make, however, I can’t say the same about the cost. In the end the cost for making this pie was $19.82. Due to the different way this recipe called for prepping the apples the cost of making this pie did go up by $7.36.

In the end, both homemade pies were gone while the store bought pies sat half eaten. However, when surveyed, many in the office weren’t really willing to try making a pie at home. So although the taste of homemade pie is preferred,not many will be making pies of their own anytime soon. If you try your hand at it, visit the sites below for the recipes I used and let me know how it goes!

Happy 4th of July!!

Recipe using store bought crust:
Apple Pie Recipe 1

Recipe using homemade crust:
Apple Pie Recipe 2

Sources:
Food Reference
Food Network
Pillsbury