The thing most pie recipes bury is that the time on the page is mostly cooling, not baking, and the cooling is not optional. The lemon meringue here says six and a half hours and only one of those is in the oven. The chocolate peanut butter pie needs almost five hours cold and is baked for ten minutes. A fruit pie cut while it is warm runs across the plate because the cornstarch has not set, and a cream pie cut warm is a bowl of pudding. Planning around that is most of the skill.
The crust decides how much work the pie actually is, so it is listed for each one below. Eight of these make their own dough. Five press a graham cracker crust into the pan, two use crushed sandwich cookies, and two name a refrigerated store-bought crust outright. The remaining eight just call for a nine-inch crust and leave the decision to you, which is the honest answer, because a store-bought crust under a good filling beats a rushed homemade one.
If you are planning for a holiday table, the chill is on your side. Every cream, no-bake and meringue pie on this list is better made the day before, because a full night in the refrigerator sets the filling properly and nothing is gained by doing it the morning of. The fruit pies are the opposite and want to be baked the same day, though they still need three to four hours on the counter before they will slice cleanly.
The fastest pie here is a double crust blackberry at 75 minutes start to finish, helped by only 30 minutes of cooling. The slowest is the classic lemon meringue at six and a half hours. Calories run from 259 for a dairy free pumpkin pie to 681 for a bourbon pecan, and every entry below lists its real total time, servings and calories.
Apple Pies
Four from eleven apple pies on the site, chosen because they are built differently rather than seasoned differently: a double crust, a crumb top, a lattice with caramel, and a fried hand pie.
Double Crust Apple Pie
Eight cups of apples with a quarter cup of flour as the thickener, under a scratch crust made with a full cup of cold butter. Ninety minutes of that total is dough and prep, 55 is baking, and the rest is the cooling you cannot skip. View the full recipe — 2 hours 25 minutes · serves 8 · 478 calories
Dutch Apple Pie with Brown Sugar Crumb Topping
Open faced with a brown sugar crumb lid instead of a top crust, which is more forgiving than rolling a second round of pastry. The base crust uses both butter and shortening, which is the combination that gives flake and structure at once. View the full recipe — 3 hours 50 minutes · serves 8 · 505 calories
Salted Caramel Apple Pie with Lattice Crust
Seven cups of Granny Smith apples, a cup of thick caramel sauce and flaky sea salt, in a lattice over two refrigerated crusts. Using store-bought pastry here is the right call, because the lattice is the part that needs your attention. View the full recipe — 3 hours 20 minutes · serves 8 · 662 calories
Homemade Fried Apple Pies
Not a pie in a dish at all. A self-rising flour dough is rolled, filled with cinnamon apples thickened with a teaspoon of cornstarch, folded and fried, then glazed. An hour and ten minutes, the fastest route to pie on this page. View the full recipe — 1 hour 10 minutes · makes 6 · 366 calories
Pumpkin, Pecan and Sweet Potato Pies
The holiday five. Three pumpkin pies that are genuinely different in their dairy, a bourbon pecan, and the sweet potato pie that is the Southern alternative to pumpkin rather than a variation on it.
Creamy Pumpkin Pie
Ten ingredients, with a cup and a third of heavy cream and three eggs against one and three quarter cups of puree. That is the richest of the three pumpkin pies here, and it is why this one sets dense and smooth rather than light. View the full recipe — 3 hours 25 minutes · serves 8 · 422 calories
Evaporated Milk Pumpkin Pie
The nine-ingredient version your grandmother made, built on a 12-ounce can of evaporated milk instead of cream. At 342 calories it is lighter than the heavy cream version and tastes more of spice and less of dairy. View the full recipe — 3 hours 10 minutes · serves 8 · 342 calories
Dairy Free Pumpkin Pie with Almond Milk
Almond milk, dairy free butter in the crust, and two and a half tablespoons of cornstarch doing the setting that eggs and cream normally do. Sweetened with maple syrup and dark brown sugar, at 259 calories, the lightest pie in the whole collection. View the full recipe — 4 hours · serves 8 · 259 calories
Bourbon Pecan Pie with Flaky Homemade Crust
Two and a half cups of pecans in total, half chopped into the filling and half arranged on top, with three tablespoons of bourbon and three quarters of a cup of corn syrup. Six hundred and eighty-one calories, the richest slice here. View the full recipe — 4 hours · serves 8 · 681 calories
Buttermilk Sweet Potato Pie
Two cups of mashed sweet potato with a full cup of buttermilk, which is the ingredient that keeps it from tasting like pumpkin pie with a different vegetable. Three eggs and both white and brown sugar, in a deep dish crust. View the full recipe — 3 hours 15 minutes · serves 8 · 420 calories
Cream Pies
Six cooked and no-bake cream pies. Every one of these is better the day before, and the long times below are almost entirely refrigerator time.
Homemade Coconut Cream Pie
A proper stovetop custard: a quarter cup of cornstarch with three eggs, a cup of whole milk and a cup of full fat coconut milk, plus a cup of shredded coconut folded in. Twenty minutes of cooking and two and a half hours of setting. View the full recipe — 2 hours 50 minutes · serves 8 · 513 calories
Old Fashioned Chocolate Cream Pie
Ten ingredients and cocoa powder rather than melted chocolate, thickened with a quarter cup of cornstarch and four egg yolks. Ten minutes on the stove, then it has to sit for three hours, and at 383 calories it is the lighter of the two chocolate pies here. View the full recipe — 3 hours 25 minutes · serves 8 · 383 calories
Layered Banana Cream Pie
Eight ingredients, built on instant vanilla pudding and a graham crust rather than a cooked custard, which is why it comes in at 272 calories, the lowest of the cream pies. Ten minutes of actual work and three and a half hours of waiting. View the full recipe — 3 hours 45 minutes · serves 8 · 272 calories
Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie
Seven ingredients: twenty-four chocolate sandwich cookies for the crust, then a cup each of peanut butter and heavy cream whipped together. Nearly five hours of chilling for ten minutes of work, and 608 calories a slice. View the full recipe — 4 hours 55 minutes · serves 8 · 608 calories
Brown Sugar Butterscotch Pie with Pecans
Real butterscotch, which means a full cup of brown sugar cooked with half a cup of butter before the milk and yolks go in. Cornstarch sets it, pecans go on top, and it needs three and a half hours cold. View the full recipe — 3 hours 50 minutes · serves 8 · 519 calories
No Bake Candy Bar Pie
Six ingredients, no oven at all: cream cheese, powdered sugar and whipped topping folded with crushed peanut butter candy bars into a prepared graham shell. Four and a quarter hours, every minute of it in the refrigerator. View the full recipe — 4 hours 15 minutes · serves 8 · 376 calories
Lemon, Lime and Meringue Pies
Five tart pies. Two are meringue, which is the hardest technique on this page, and three set with acid and condensed or evaporated milk instead, which is considerably more forgiving.
Classic Lemon Meringue Pie
The full version: a cornstarch and egg yolk curd with half a cup of fresh lemon juice, under a five-white meringue stabilized with cream of tartar. Six and a half hours total and only one of them is baking, which is the figure to plan around. View the full recipe — 6 hours 30 minutes · serves 8 · 415 calories
Classic Key Lime Pie
Six ingredients and no thickener beyond four egg yolks reacting with the acid in half a cup of key lime juice and a can of sweetened condensed milk. Twenty-five minutes of baking, and at 331 calories it is the lightest in this group. View the full recipe — 4 hours 40 minutes · serves 8 · 331 calories
Old Fashioned Chocolate Meringue Pie
Half a cup of cocoa with flour rather than cornstarch as the thickener, which gives a softer set than the chocolate cream pie above, topped with a three-white meringue. Two hours forty-five minutes, the fastest meringue pie here. View the full recipe — 2 hours 45 minutes · serves 8 · 464 calories
Blackberry Lemonade Pie
Thirty vanilla sandwich cookies crushed for the crust, then a pound of cream cheese with condensed milk, three quarters of a cup of lemon juice and blackberry preserves swirled through. At 680 calories it is the richest no-bake pie on the list. View the full recipe — 4 hours 30 minutes · serves 8 · 680 calories
No Bake Cream Cheese Lemonade Pie
Eight ingredients and no oven: cream cheese, powdered sugar, evaporated milk and half a cup of lemonade concentrate in a graham crust. The concentrate is what makes it taste like lemonade rather than lemon, which is the point. View the full recipe — 4 hours 15 minutes · serves 8 · 349 calories
Fruit Pies
Five built on fresh fruit, and the group with the shortest times, because a fruit pie cools on the counter rather than in the refrigerator. All five use cornstarch, which sets clearer than flour and lets the fruit color show.
Double Crust Blackberry Pie
Seventy-five minutes start to finish, the fastest full pie in the collection, with 45 of those in the oven and only 30 of cooling. Four cups of blackberries with a quarter cup of cornstarch, under a three-cup-flour scratch crust. View the full recipe — 1 hour 15 minutes · serves 8 · 497 calories
Fresh Cherry Pie with a Golden Crust
Four cups of fresh cherries, a quarter cup of cornstarch and a package of refrigerated crusts, which is what gets this to the table in an hour and twenty. Pitting the cherries is the real work, not the pastry. View the full recipe — 1 hour 20 minutes · serves 8 · 335 calories
Double Crust Fresh Peach Pie
Seven cups of sliced peaches, and a crust made with both butter and shortening that gets most of the four hours as dough rest. Forty-five minutes of baking, so the long number is almost entirely waiting. View the full recipe — 4 hours 55 minutes · serves 8 · 492 calories
Fresh Strawberry Pie
Two pounds of strawberries in a cornstarch glaze poured into an already baked shell, so the berries stay raw and keep their shape instead of collapsing. Three and a quarter hours, nearly all of it setting in the refrigerator. View the full recipe — 3 hours 15 minutes · serves 8 · 327 calories
Fresh Strawberry Cream Cheese Pie
The other strawberry approach: a sweetened cream cheese layer in a graham crust with two cups of fresh berries on top, and no glaze at all. Eighty-five minutes, which makes it the fastest no-bake pie here. View the full recipe — 1 hour 25 minutes · serves 8 · 364 calories
Pie Questions Worth Answering First
How long does a pie really need to cool before cutting?
Longer than almost anyone waits. A fruit pie thickened with cornstarch needs three to four hours on a rack, because the starch only finishes setting as it drops below about 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Cut it at an hour and the filling runs. A cream or custard pie needs a minimum of four hours and is better overnight. A pumpkin or pecan pie needs two to three hours to finish setting in the center. The only ones you can eat warm are the fried apple pies, which are meant to be.
Is a store-bought crust actually worse?
Not in the ways that matter most of the time. Two of the recipes here specifically call for refrigerated crusts, including the salted caramel apple pie, where the lattice work is where your attention should go. A store-bought crust under a well-made filling will beat a homemade crust that was rushed, overworked or rolled warm. Where scratch pastry genuinely wins is in a double crust fruit pie, because you control the thickness and the fat, and that is where the eight scratch recipes here are concentrated.
Which pies can I make the day before?
All six cream pies, both no-bake lemonade pies, the key lime and the strawberry cream cheese pie are better for a night in the refrigerator, not merely tolerant of it. Pumpkin, pecan and sweet potato pies are fine made a day ahead and kept covered in the refrigerator. The two meringue pies are the exception, because meringue weeps and shrinks overnight, so those are same-day. Fruit pies are best baked the morning of and left on the counter.
What is the difference between cornstarch and flour for thickening a pie?
Cornstarch sets clearer and firmer and takes about half as much, which is why all five fruit pies here use it and you can see the fruit through the filling. Flour sets cloudy and softer, which suits apple pie, where two of the versions here use a quarter cup of flour and nobody minds an opaque filling. The chocolate meringue pie uses flour while the chocolate cream pie uses cornstarch, and comparing those two slices side by side is the clearest way to feel the difference.
Why did my meringue weep or shrink away from the crust?
Three usual causes. Undissolved sugar is the most common, so add it slowly and rub a little between your fingers to check for grit before you stop beating. Second, the meringue has to be spread onto a filling that is still hot and sealed right to the crust all the way around, which is what anchors it. Third, humidity works against you, so a damp day is the wrong day for meringue. The cream of tartar in both meringue recipes here is there specifically to stabilize the whites.
More Collections to Cook From
The dessert collections overlap a little with this one, though each is organized around a different decision.
- 25 Dessert Recipes — The broad list, across every category of sweet.
- 25 Apple Recipes — More of the eleven apple pies, plus cakes, crisps and breakfasts.
- 25 Cheesecake Recipes — If the no-bake cream pies were the part you liked.
- 25 Cake Recipes — For when a pie is not the right shape for the occasion.
- 25 Chocolate Recipes — The chocolate cream, meringue and peanut butter pies in wider company.
Browse all of our recipe collections.
