Julian is a southern CA town known for its apple pie. When we drove through on our way to the treehouse we had rented for a girls’ weekend, we noticed the inordinate number of pie shops, many with signs saying they had the best apple pie. Naturally we figured we ought to investigate and find out for ourselves which one really was the best. Thus, Pie Quest was born.

We dedicated an entire afternoon to pie shop hopping. But how to determine which apple pie was the best, especially when there are so many different varieties of apple pie? We decided for consistency of comparison we would get traditional apple at every spot, plus one other slice that seemed popular at each shop. We also discovered that cinnamon ice cream as accompaniment to your apple pie is a thing in Julian, so we always got cinnamon ice cream on the side in order to try the pies straight and a la mode. Each pie slice was to be given a score for its crust, filling, and overall experience.

But even with those guidelines in place, how were we going to come to consensus with 6 opinionated ladies tasting and judging? Luckily for us, in addition to being good eaters we are also nerds – yes, we did create an online survey so each member of our newly formed Pie Quest Council could instantly rate the pies from our phones, and we’d automatically receive aggregated results.

Before you judge, you should know that we had several people come over and inquire what we were doing, then ask if they could join in on the fun! So what was the verdict of the esteemed Pie Quest Council?

Our first stop was Julian Pie Company. It’s a bit off the beaten path, but we were told it would be worth the departure from Julian’s main strip to get these pies.

We got a Traditional Apple and a Dutch Apple, with sides of cinnamon ice cream. The filling was full of wonderful apple flavor and the crusts had good texture. A very yummy kick-off to our pie quest.

Next up was Candied Apple Pastry Company. We’d gone here on a previous day for brunch and some desserts to go, but hadn’t tried the pie. Since we’d had a nice experience with their other foods, we thought we ought to go back and give their pie a go too.

We got a Traditional Apple and a Sour Cream Apple, with cinnamon ice cream on the side. The crust was decent though not much better than a good store-bought crust, but the filling left much to be desired. It lacked distinguishable pieces of apple and was more like apple mush. They definitely seemed to focus more on their other foods, with the pie feeling like an afterthought.

Next we went to Moms, which seemed to be one of the most popular pie shops in Julian with a steady flow of people going in and out.

We got a Traditional Apple and an Apple Caramel Crumb, with sides of cinnamon ice cream. The crust was quite good, especially the traditional which was buttery and flaky. Unfortunately the filling was extremely sweet, overwhelming our ability to actually taste the apples.

Our last stop was Apple Alley, which we were drawn to because it had the cute small-town feel you’d imagine for a town like Julian.

We got the Traditional Apple, Apple Crumb, and Caramel Apple Pecan, with a side of cinnamon ice cream and a side of vanilla ice cream. We’d been good about sticking to our 2-slice and cinnamon ice cream plan up to this point, but since this was our last stop and we therefore didn’t have to worry about leaving room in our stomachs anymore, we allowed ourselves to get a bonus slice and some vanilla ice cream. The filling had nice firm apple pieces and wasn’t overly sweet, but the crusts were dry and crumbly.

And now I present to you the Pie Quest Council with our tools of the trade, ready to reveal to you the judges’ results…

And the winner is: Julian Pie Company!!!

On our way home, we returned to the spot to pick up whole pies to-go. The longer we stood in line in front of the pastry case, the more we were drawn in by the pie varieties we hadn’t had the chance to try yet – “ooh, peach apple crumb sounds amazing… look at the juice oozing out of that berry pie… they have one with caramel!”.  So we found reasons for ourselves to buy additional pies – “you should probably bring one home for your boyfriend, mother, cousin, that BBQ you’re going to in a few days”. This led to the idea that we really ought to have tried slices before buying whole pies, which rapidly devolved into a bonus round of pie tasting.

This turned out to be an excellent decision, as the Peach Apple Crumb turned out to be the best pie of the trip. As we wondered aloud whether we might be getting a bit out of control with our pie-buying frenzy, Dan (the awesome guy taking our orders) told us not to worry because “nothing sticks at this elevation”. We took Dan at his word, did one final round of pie purchasing, and finally our pie adventure was at an end… except for all those bags of pie we took home with us haha! 😉