Sunday Blog 1 of 2: Sophie's Caramel Apple Pie

It's been a busy culinary Sunday, so there will be two blogs today.

Blog #1 is baking related.  Technically it's vegetarian, and it does have fresh produce, so I feel ok sneaking it in here . . . Anyhow, I had a contest at work where I promised the winner a homemade fruit pie.  Sophie was the winner, and her flavor of choice was caramel apple.

So, I set upon making this recipe from The Washington Post.  I had made it a few years ago for my fiance's grandmother's birthday, so I knew it was tasty.

 I used Macintosh apples, even though the recipe calls for Granny smith.  Why?  Because my mother's edict is that Macintosh is always the #1 choice for baking, and Mom does know best.  The caramels are Kraft. 

For the crust, I used my Kitchen-Aid.  I made the crust last night to save time tonight (more on that later - meaning it's 10:00 p.m. and the subject of blog #2 is bubbling in the oven with 30 minutes to go and it still needs to rest 20 minutes after that  . . . a long night it shall be).

I made the topping with a pastry blender.  If you bake a lot, it's a handy dandy tool.  You can also use two knives if you prefer to do that.

I skipped doing the cutouts on the top.  I rarely roll out my pie crust thin enough (I need to work on that) to get my crust over the edge of the pie pan, much less for the extra cutouts called for here.



After an hour bubbling in the oven, here's the end result:

To the office it will go tomorrow!  Sophie, I hope you enjoy!!!