Pie should be special—but not every slice is a sweet success. Some pies look great but fall flat once you dig in. If you’re going to treat yourself, it better be rich, flaky, and full of flavor.
This list rounds up 15 pies that often disappoint and just don’t deserve your dessert plate.
1. Store-Bought Pumpkin Pie
The crust is usually pale and soggy, never reaching that golden, buttery crunch pumpkin pie deserves. The filling leans dense and oddly gelatinous.
Spices taste flat or artificial, and the sweetness is often overdone. It’s better to wait for a homemade version done right.
2. Gelatin Cherry Pie
Bright red and glossy, it may look like a diner dream, but the cherries are often bland and the texture is rubbery.
The filling jiggles more than it melts, with flavor that lands closer to candy than fruit. One bite is usually enough.
3. Canned Peach Pie
Canned peaches turn mushy during baking, giving the pie an odd, stringy texture and syrupy sweetness.
The fruit lacks the tartness of fresh peaches. Even the crust gets weighed down with sticky excess.
4. Frozen Banana Cream Pie
Bananas don’t freeze well, and once thawed, they turn brown and soft in all the wrong ways.
The whipped topping often tastes like plastic, and the crust goes from crisp to cardboard. It’s rarely worth the fork.
5. Grocery Store Apple Pie
Soggy bottoms and gluey fillings ruin what should be a flaky, spiced classic. Apples are too soft or too dry.
Pre-cooked fillings lack that juicy, just-baked aroma. You’re better off baking it yourself or skipping entirely.
6. Artificial Key Lime Pie
Neon green color is your first warning. The filling leans more like sour candy than citrus custard.
Graham cracker crusts often taste stale, and the whipped topping barely holds shape. It’s key lime in name only.
7. Cheap Chocolate Satin Pie
Looks rich but tastes waxy. Chocolate flavor is weak, masked by sugar and artificial thickening agents.
The texture can be chalky or oddly slippery. True chocolate lovers should steer clear.
8. Sugar-Free Lemon Meringue
The tangy lemon layer loses its brightness under fake sweeteners and the meringue lacks fluff and flavor.
What should be airy and sharp becomes dense and dull. Even the crust doesn’t want to be part of it.
9. Supermarket Pecan Pie
Pecans float atop a thick, gelatinous syrup that’s often too sweet to finish. The filling clings like glue.
Nuts sometimes taste stale or soft, and the crust can be greasy. It’s a sugar bomb with little reward.
10. Instant Pudding Pie
A graham cracker crust filled with whipped topping and instant pudding might be fast, but rarely feels satisfying.
There’s no depth, no bite, no texture shift. It’s more cafeteria tray than dessert table.
11. Mass-Produced Blueberry Pie
Overly sweet and gooey, the blueberries get lost in syrup. There’s little pop or brightness in flavor.
The crust often turns gummy, soaking up too much liquid. A fresh berry crumble would be far better.
12. Pre-Made Ice Cream Pie
Often a freezer-burned mess with too many mix-ins and not enough balance. Crusts crack, fillings melt into soup.
It’s more chaos than celebration. Real ice cream deserves a better fate than this soggy spectacle.
13. Canned Fruit Cocktail Pie
Fruit cocktail was never meant to be baked. The pieces are too small, too soft, and oddly flavored.
It turns into a mushy mix with mystery textures. Even nostalgia can’t save it.
14. Artificial Strawberry Glaze Pie
Strawberries drowning in shiny red goo may look tempting, but that glaze tastes more like cough syrup than fruit.
The crust often sits under a wet layer, turning limp. Fresh strawberries deserve better.
15. Oversweet Coconut Cream Pie
Too much sugar masks the delicate flavor of coconut, and the custard turns into a sticky mess.
Texture suffers from gummy filling and wilting whipped topping. It’s more cloying than creamy.