The Worst Thanksgiving Dessert According To 27% Of People

As Thanksgiving grows near, now is the time to very nicely make requests to whoever is preparing your Thanksgiving feast. But what do people want for dessert? After all, while the turkey and cranberry sauce will be featured food, it's the dessert that lingers afterward.

Mashed decided to find out what dessert would disappoint most at the end of a Thanksgiving meal. We asked people what their worst dessert was, and 607 Americans responded. Of those 607 respondents, only 9.72% decided that apple pie, the dessert that metaphorically embodies the United States, could be counted as the worst. The next three least disliked are other broadly recognized favorites: pumpkin pie, which captured 12.03% of the vote; pecan pie, which received 12.52%; and pumpkin cheesecake, which got 12.69%. Then, there's a jump to the second most disliked pie in the survey: coconut cream pie. Specifically, a full 25.54% of respondents consider this pie to be the worst. But there is one more that manages to edge out coconut cream pie for the title position.

The dessert that attracted the ire of most survey respondents was sweet potato pie — it's the worst Thanksgiving dessert for 27.51% of voters. This could be because it is primarily a southern dish. As the culinary historian Adrian Miller noted in The Washington Post, the dessert barely gets any love in any other context (unlike the ubiquitous pumpkin pie). So it's possible that respondents chose the dish they've had the least experience with.

It's perfectly possible, though, that those polled simply dislike the classic Thanksgiving dessert. If you fall into this category, you should try a tip offered by Maya-Camille Broussard, owner of Justice of the Pies and star in Netflix's "Bake Squad." As reported by Today, she explained on Al Roker's "Cooking Up a Storm" podcast that she includes plantains as a special ingredient and bakes the sweet potato before blending it so that it carmelizes. With over a week left before Thanksgiving, you might just have time to experiment with perfecting this dessert to your tastes before it hits your table.