Oh My That Pie

I made a cobbler today--peach and raspberry from fruits put up last summer. I had a hankering for it, and we needed to use up some of that summer goodness. And another reason? Read on:

After working in our booths the other day, we stopped for dinner at Bob Evans restaurant. Bob Evans is a regional chain, started not far from where I live, and their menu features good "home cooking" kind of items--meatloaf, fried chicken, breakfast all day, things like that. It's always well prepared and delicious.

I'd ordered a light meal, and thought I'd have a piece of pie to finish up. I got a shock when I looked at the pies listed, though: the one I wanted, a "triple berry" pie, had 600 calories per serving! And that was without ice cream. Needless to say, I passed it up and went dessert-less. I don't usually order dessert anyway, but a pie made with strawberries, blackberries and raspberries just sounded good, you know?

I have been thinking about those calories ever since, and posted a bit about it on Facebook. How in the world could Bob Evans pack 600 calories in one slice of pie with a tiny dab of whipped cream on top? According to the website Nutritionix, one slice of fruit pie has about 296 calories. So how does Bob Evans manage to pack twice as many into their pie?

I decided to try to figure out how many calories are in my homemade berry pie. I use about 3 cups of berries--so a total of about 360 calories at 120 calories per cup. I add about 1/2 cup of sugar (190 calories), a couple tablespoons of cornstarch (62 calories), maybe a jot of lemon juice (10 calories). The crust, according to various websites, has about 600-700 calories, depending on size. I'm betting mine has less, since I make smaller pies and add no sugar to the crust.

So adding all that up, my berry pie has 1222 calories. Give the benefit of the doubt anyway, and round my pie up to 1300 calories. If I cut the pie into 8 pieces, that's only 162.5 calories per slice! Even cut into six large pieces it's still 216 calories per slice.

How then does Bob Evans pack so many calories into their pie? Did I mis-read the menu, and 600 calories meant for a whole pie? I went online and checked their menu. There was no berry pie listed online, but their double-crust apple pie was offered: 530 calories per slice, or 2990 for the whole pie!

Did I misfigure somehow? I don't think I did--the numbers are the numbers.

I guess I won't be ordering any pie when I go out, certainly not at Bob Evans. Homemade is best anyway, and after this little investigation I felt almost virtuous about the cobbler I made today--after all, it's only about 163 calories per serving  😊


Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.