What do you get when you stick your thumb in a Trader Joe’s pie?

Last updated on August 5, 2022

Trader Joe’s Free Sample

Something EVERY store should copy from Trader Joe’s is their free sample of the day. I can’t tell you how many foods I never would have tried, or even noticed, if I didn’t greedily pass by the freebies, try one and then buy the whole shebang.

This is how I tried Trader Joe’s Ultimate Berry Pie. Otherwise, why take a chance? 🙂

I’m not a pie person. I think it’s the crust – shortening tastes terrible, or is it baking soda or powder? I don’t stay around long enough to find out. Unless a crust is made from butter or cookies or graham cracker, I just leave it on the plate.

But here was the Trader Joe’s sample in store (bless ’em!), with a lot of whipped cream on top, and who doesn’t need more of that, right? So I tried it. I’m always looking for something a little more healthy that also tastes good and sweet. Good!

The crust is not too hard, and nicely crumbly — I would have liked more of it, to balance out the tart fruit. (Actually  I think this is more of a tart than a pie.) “Fruit” is right: it has raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, cranberries and cherries, in that order.

Uh-oh, Pie

I had second thoughts in the store when I saw that the ingedient list had cherries. I like cherry flavored lollipops or cough drops, but not real cherries. Fortunately, it tasted more like blackberries and brown sugar, with a lot of natural juices to wash it down, so I ignored the cherry part.

Is this a local Trader Joe’s pie for SoCal? I couldn’t find any other reviews of it. I recommend it, but I didn’t finish the pie. It turns out whipped cream was the “cherry on top” in the store for me, and I ran out of whipped cream!