Review - Baker's Treat 49 cent Cherry Pie

My perpetual search for a cherry pie as good as the Hostess snack pies from my youth continued last week. I was at ALDI and the Baker's Treat Cherry Pies jumped out at me from the shelf. First, they looked delicious on the box as you can see above. Second.. the 49 cent price tag is something I had not seen since the 1980s, when I used to buy fruit pies with my lawn mowing money.

I really haven't been let down by any products I've taken gambles on at ALDI. Usually they are incredibly priced and insanely good. Last week would mark the very first exception to this rule.

So the pie looked delicious enough on the packaging, although they always do. The picture on the box clearly showed icing albeit a thin layer, but that's pretty much standard on any cherry pie you'll see on the market these days. But lo and behold, there was absolutely no icing on this pie at all.

I shook off the absence of icing and as I started handling the pie, I noticed it felt moist. It was not crisp at all, nor did it have any rigidness whatsoever. I could even see the color of the filling through a soaked and nearly translucent layer of dough. I took a deep breath and bit into the pie.

The soft crust kind of mashed and melded with the cherry filling. The filling itself looked and tasted very fake and artificial. I swear I saw something that almost looked like a cherry. At least.. I hope it was a cherry. The inner layer of dough was soggy and gel like.

Finally, the aftertaste this thing left in my mouth was terrible. It tasted kind of like a raw dough made with a possibly rancid shortening. It had a somewhat bitter and almost sour taste to it, that dominated my taste buds for about 10 minutes after I was done eating the pie.

The back of the box encourages you to try them warm by popping them in the microwave. I can't imagine doing this, as it would surely be a hot mushy gooey mess. It might be better if you toasted it in the oven, but I know for a fact it wouldn't make the pie that much better or even worth eating.

I can usually find something good about most snack pies I sample, but there was nothing about this pie I even remotely enjoyed, except for being done with it. At least I'm only out $0.49, not too expensive of a gamble. Maybe it was just a bad roll of the dice and I got a hold of a bad pie. It's bound to happen with as many snack cakes that I eat. However, I'm not willing to gamble on this brand again due to this experience alone.