Little Debbie Cherry Fruit Pie review

So I moved forward with my search for a cherry fruit pie that is reminiscent of the old Hostess Cherry Fruit Pies. This week I ordered some Fruit Pies of the Little Debbie variety. Right off the bat, I saw that the picture on the box looked promising (they always do) but I didn't see many cherries in the pie filling. I thought this was kind of strange, because snack cake companies always boast about their pie filling. Pictures on packaging normally reflect a boat load of cherries ready to spill out of the pie, even though the product usually doesn't live up to the hype.

Impressive! Little Debbie dedicated 80% of the the panel on the back of the box, to showcase the Michigan cherries they use in their pies. It seems like they are super proud of the product they source. I was getting excited to see what they are working with in these pies.

I knew these fruit pies were going to be a bit smaller than your typical fruit pie, but WOW! I placed a Twinkie next to it for size comparison.

When I opened the package I thought.. "Am I looking at a fruit pie, or frosted ravioli?" I must say, the photographer who took the pictures for the packaging has an incredible amount of talent. The perspective of the pies on the front of the box make them look much bigger. The frosting coverage was nice however, and it did smell wonderful.

So there were some cherries floating around in there, but not nearly as many as I would've liked to see. I did taste some nice tartness to the cherries, but there wasn't enough of them inside of the pie.  After a few bites I was finished and couldn't decide on how much liked or didn't like the snack cake, because there wasn't enough pie there to help me accurately make my decision. Accordingly, I opened another one to get a better taste for the pie.  After my second pie, I was able to conclude that these are pretty darn good. A wee bit better tasting than the Entenmann's Cherry Fruit Pie I last reviewed, even though this pie sported less cherries by volume. Better tasting even with a lesser amount of cherries.. a true testament to the quality of the ingredients Little Debbie uses.

After the initial shock of discovering just how small these fruit pies indeed are, I made peace with it.  Two pies are probably still less of a portion than you would get versus other full size fruit pies. Lord knows I don't need to be eating full sized fruit pies, so a smaller option is kind of nice.

Most of the fruit pies on the market ring in at around 500 calories, 50% saturated fat, 39 grams of sugar, and 23% of your daily carb intake.  That's one pie my friends. Mind you.. consuming 40 grams of sugar every day is a recipe for heart attack and stroke, so reducing my snack intake is something I have been trying to get a better handle on lately. The nutrition numbers on a single Little Debbie snack cake, run roughly less than half on most of those numbers listed above. This is definitely a better option for me, but having an entire box of these little pies laying around is just setting myself up for failure.

The verdict.. 

3 out of 5 cherries on my Cherry Fruit Pie Scale

So as you can see, I gave Little Debbie Cherry Fruit Pies,  '3 out of 5 Cherries'.  The filling was tart, but was a bit more sweeter than I would've liked it to be. The frosting ratio was spot on, but the taste of the filling tended to get lost and wasn't always the star of the pie. I believe that's a result of not having enough filling in comparison to the crust.  Cherries are my favorite fruit, and cherry is my favorite variety of pie, so my standards are pretty high when it comes to cherry pies in any type of form big or small.  All in all these were pretty good.  Better than Entenmann's, but still not as good as the old school Hostess Cherry Fruit Pies of my youth. Therefore, my search continues.