Review: Village PieMaker - Pumpkin Pie

The Village PieMaker's Pumpkin Pie is a ready-to-bake frozen pumpkin pie that is offered around the holiday season. According to the box, it features "pumpkin with notes of warm spices and brown sugar" in a "hand-crimped pastry crust."

A 2.5-pound pie was $15.99.

The crust of Village PieMaker's Pumpkin Pie stood out from other pumpkin pies I've had as it was flaky and crispy with a slightly salty, buttery richness to it. Most of the pumpkin pies that I've eaten came with a fairly dense but tasteless short crust. The crust here was savory when eaten by itself and added an extra dimension to the pumpkin pie filling when eaten together.

The crust also stood up well when refrigerated overnight, as it was still crispy the next day.

The pumpkin pie filling was rich and creamy with a mellow pumpkin flavor. It was spiced but not heavily so. The brown sugar gave it a bit more complexity that your typical pumpkin pie. It was sweet but less so than most frozen pumpkin pies. The texture of the filling was slightly loose after an hour of cooling but the pie still cut rather cleanly and it firmed up very nicely in the fridge.

Overall, the Village PieMaker Pumpkin Pie made for a really nice, traditional pumpkin pie. It's pricier than your run-of-the-mill frozen pie by a good margin (Mrs. Smith's and Marie Callender's frozen pumpkin pies cost $7 to $9 around here) but you're not going to find butter or cream (the second ingredient in this pie) in most frozen pumpkin pies at the supermarket. Basically, it's the kind of pie that you'd find at a local bakery (which probably also uses butter and cream).

Nutritional Info - The Village PieMaker Pumpkin Pie
Serving Size - 1/10 pie (116g)
Calories - 280 (from Fat - 140)
Fat - 16g (Saturated Fat - 9g)
Sodium - 310mg
Carbs - 32g (Sugar - 17g)
Protein - 3g