Pie Trivia
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95 free Pie trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
40 free pie trivia questions with answers. These pie trivia questions start with the crust itself: the inedible medieval 'coffyn', why the word may come from the magpie, what humble pie was really made of, and the pharaoh's tomb that shows early sweet pastries. Then it works through the classics: apple pie's English origins, pumpkin and pecan, Key lime and Boston cream, mince pies and the Puritans, Cornish pasties, Melton Mowbray pork pies, tourtière and stargazy pie. There are questions on state pies, Pi Day and its Exploratorium origins, custard pie fights from Ben Turpin to Bill Gates, banoffee, whoopie and Moon Pies, and the pie floater of Adelaide. Perfect for Pi Day, Thanksgiving or Pie Day quizzes; the easy ones suit families and the harder ones on dates and origins will test bakers. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 95 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01'Pie in the sky' first appeared in a 1911 union song that mocked whose empty promises to workers?
Preachers
Preachers were the target: labour activist Joe Hill parodied a Salvation Army hymn, jeering that the hungry were promised a reward in heaven instead of a meal.
Q 02What did medieval cooks call the stiff, often inedible pastry case that held a pie's filling?
A coffin
A coffin, then spelled 'coffyn', simply meant a box or basket: the thick crust worked as baking dish and storage case, and often had to be cracked open to reach the filling.
Q 03The expression 'to eat humble pie' comes from a pie made with what?
Chopped animal offal
Chopped animal offal, chiefly a deer's innards, was called 'umbles', and umble pie was food for the lower orders; the 'h' crept in later, though 'humble' is an unrelated word.
Q 04Which spice colours the filling in a 14th-century English apple pie recipe, one of the earliest known?
Saffron
Saffron tints the apples, figs, raisins and pears in that recipe, so the dish behind 'as American as apple pie' was written down in England some four centuries before the United States existed.
Q 05'For Mom and apple pie' was supposedly American soldiers' stock answer for why they fought in which war?
World War II
World War II is when the saying is said to have caught on, yet the dish is an import: an English recipe survives from the 14th century, sweetened with figs, raisins and pears but no sugar.
Q 06American Cookery (1796), the first cookbook by an American, gave custard-style recipes for which pie?
Pumpkin
Pumpkin pie took its modern form in Amelia Simmons's 'pompkin' puddings baked in a crust; earlier English cooks had sliced and fried the pumpkin instead.
Q 07Key lime pie probably grew out of a 1931 lemon pie recipe written to promote which canned ingredient?
Condensed milk
Condensed milk maker Borden printed a no-bake 'Magic Lemon Cream Pie' in a 1931 brochure; swap in Key limes and the acid juice still thickens the milk and yolks without an oven.
Q 08In 2006, Key lime pie was designated the official state pie of which state?
Florida
Florida made it official in 2006, four decades after a Keys lawmaker is said to have proposed a $100 fine for advertising Key lime pie made without Key limes.
Q 09Which state named pecan pie its official state pie in 2013?
Texas
Texas lawmakers argued that no dish 'says Texas more sweetly', pointing out that the pecan was already the state tree and is the only nut the state grows commercially.
Q 10Mince pies long ago lost their minced beef and tongue, but traditional mincemeat still contains which fat?
Suet
Suet, the hard fat from around the kidneys, is the last trace of the meat: cheap West Indian sugar turned the pie sweet in the 18th century, and the beef and tongue slowly dropped out.
Q 11According to the PGI rules, a Cornish pasty must be crimped where?
Along the curved side
Along the curved side, never over the top: since 2011 the same protected-name rules have also meant that a pasty sold as Cornish must be made in Cornwall.
Q 12Which Leicestershire town gives its name to Britain's most famous pork pie?
Melton Mowbray
Melton Mowbray's name has been legally protected since 2008: after distant factories began selling look-alikes, only pies made around the town with uncured pork may carry it.
Q 13Purists say a shepherd's pie should contain which meat, as opposed to the beef in a cottage pie?
Lamb or mutton
Q 21Moon Pies are made in which Tennessee city?
Chattanooga
Chattanooga Bakery says the Moon Pie was born in 1917, when a Kentucky coal miner asked its travelling salesman for a snack 'as big as the moon'.
Q 22Despite its name, Boston cream pie is really what kind of dessert?
A cake
A cake of sponge layers, custard and chocolate glaze, it kept the name 'pie' from the days when cakes and pies were baked in the same pans.
Q 23Shoofly pie, a Pennsylvania Dutch specialty, is made with which sweetener?
Molasses
Molasses fills the pie and may have named it: one account points to Shoofly, a Philadelphia molasses brand named after a boxing circus mule, another to the flies the sweet filling drew.
Shepherd's pie, named for the sheep-herder, uses lamb or mutton; 'cottage pie', first recorded in 1791, originally covered any minced meat and the two names were long interchangeable.
Q 14Pi Day was founded in 1988 by physicist Larry Shaw at which San Francisco institution?
The Exploratorium
Larry Shaw, an Exploratorium physicist, launched Pi Day in 1988 with staff marching around a circular space and eating fruit pies; the US House recognised the day in 2009.
Q 15Which liqueur flavours a grasshopper pie?
Crème de menthe
Grasshopper pie takes its name and green colour from crème de menthe, the mint liqueur in the grasshopper cocktail; the filling is usually folded with marshmallow or cream in a chocolate-cookie crust.
Q 16The pie-in-the-face gag was first seen on film in 1909's Mr. Flip, starring which comedian?
Ben Turpin
Ben Turpin took the first on-screen pie in Essanay's Mr. Flip (1909); Chaplin and Stan Laurel had already done the gag on stage in Fred Karno's troupe.
Q 17Which duo stars in the 1927 pie-fight short The Battle of the Century?
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy used a reported 3,000 pies; Stan Laurel wanted to throw so many that there would never be room for another pie picture.
Q 18Which tech billionaire was famously pied in Belgium in 1998?
Bill Gates
Bill Gates was ambushed with cream pies by Belgian prankster Noël Godin's crew, who said they had drunk Trappist beer for courage beforehand.
Q 19Which pie was invented at the Hungry Monk restaurant in East Sussex in the early 1970s?
Banoffee
Banoffee pie began as a rework of an American coffee toffee pie: the chef tried apple and mandarin before banana clicked, and the owner coined the name.
Q 20Which state made the whoopie pie its official state treat in 2011?
Maine
Maine's lawmakers first proposed it as state dessert, but that title went to wild blueberry pie, so the whoopie pie had to settle for being the official 'treat'.
Q 24Tourtière, a minced pork pie eaten at Christmas réveillon, comes from which Canadian province?
Quebec
Quebec's tourtière travelled south with emigrants, who carried the Christmas Eve pie into New England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Q 25Which Cornish pie is baked with fish heads poking up through the crust?
Stargazy pie
Stargazy pie's pilchards seem to gaze at the stars; Mousehole eats it every 23 December in honour of Tom Bawcock, the fisherman said to have braved a storm to end a famine.
Q 26Adelaide's pie floater is a meat pie served sitting in a bowl of what?
Pea soup
Pea soup holds the upside-down pie, a late-night staple of Adelaide's street pie carts that probably descends from the pea-and-pie suppers of northern England.
Q 27How many blackbirds were baked in the pie in the nursery rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence?
Four and twenty
Four and twenty blackbirds, though the first printed verse, from around 1744, had 'naughty boys' in the pie instead.
Q 28What new name did Dreyer's announce in 2020 for its Eskimo Pie ice cream bar?
Edy's Pie
Edy's Pie honours Dreyer's co-founder Joseph Edy; the company retired the century-old name after acknowledging that it used a derogatory term.
Q 29Buko pie, filled with tender young coconut, is a specialty of which country?
Philippines
The Philippines is said to owe buko pie to the Pahud sisters of Los Baños, who set out to bake American-style apple pie and used young coconut because apples did not grow there.
Q 30Which Australian invention of 1949 seals a sandwich into a pie-like pocket over a fire?
The jaffle iron
The jaffle iron was patented by Bondi doctor Ernest Smithers, who also coined the name; it set off a jaffle craze that made the clamp a must-have in 1950s Australian kitchens.