It is that time of the year where the Arizona sun begins to dim earlier, the leaves turn into shades of red and yellow, and the holiday traditions come out of hibernation. One of the most prominent indicators of the fall season is the new range of holiday food that fills the supermarket shelves. One market in particular, Trader Joe’s, offers various options to its customers who are ready to embrace pumpkin spice and different types of pies.

The Trader Joe’s Apple Pie comes in a neat package showcasing the pie. It does come at room temperature, and when it comes to pie, you either want it cold (for pumpkin pie) or warm (which is definitely where apple pie should lie on the temperature spectrum). The box offered no instructions on how to heat up the pie, so I had to improvise.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. As you are waiting for the oven to preheat, take the pie and transfer it from the box to a baking tray. Once the oven is prepared, place the pie into the oven and set it for 10 minutes. If you want the exterior to be crunchier, put it for longer than 10 minutes, but make sure to constantly check on the pie so that it does not burn. Finally, take out the pie, let it cool, cut yourself a slice, and top it off with some Trader Joes French Vanilla ice cream.

In ‘Let’s Talk About Food with Nadine’, I gave this pie a solid 6.5/10. The taste was good, the structure a bit weak, but overall you could bring this pie to a party and satisfy the guests.

The two other items were the Pumpkin Spice Cookies and the Apple Cider Cookies. The Pumpkin Spice Cookies were beautifully decorated on the exterior, coated in shades of orange and white in the shape of a pumpkin. However, these cookies also received a top rating for their flavor. The shortbread taste correlated perfectly with the yogurt coating, you could definitely snack on them throughout the day.

The Apple Cider Cookies on the other hand, were a little too stiff and had an odd aftertaste. You have to really enjoy apple cider to be able to snack on this cookie. If they were crunchier, it would have received a higher scoring, biting into it was a little too difficult. 

To listen to a more in-depth analysis on these Trader Joe’s treats, check out our ‘Let’s Talk About Food with Nadine’ on our instagram page @phsprecedent.