Pie Bake 2010

I have given yesterday the name "Pie Bake 2010"...yes...it was the kind of day that needed to be named.  It started at 8:15 am when I began to measure ingredients for the first batch of pie crusts.  Mike was wanting to give his employees something with a personal touch for Christmas, so I offered to bake them pies.  Little did I know that it would take me over 11 hours to bake 8 pies (and a pan of mini pies that I whipped up from the left over dough/filling).  This is what the counter looked like at 8:15 yesterday morning...

By 10:45 I had all the pie crusts made!  (I'd also made breakfast for the boys and hired Brody to be my babysitter for the day.  I promised to pay him $2 if he'd help me by entertaining Barrett.  He took the job very serious...at least most of the day.)

12:51 pm and the first bag of apples is peeled and sliced.  One bag down...one massive Costco size bag of apples to go!

I decided to go ahead and season the apples from the first bag, fill some of the pies, and put them in the fridge.  I had to fight off little hands as I put apples from the bowl into the pie shells.  I don't blame the boys.  Apples with cinnamon & sugar (and other ingredients) on them are good!!!

 

See the yummy mess they left on my hands?  What's a girl to do with this mess?!?  Yep.  Lick it off!  (FYI:  Then I washed my hands.  I did not knowingly spread germs while making pies yesterday)

As you can see, there's not a whole lotta room in my fridge for pies.  There's no way 8 of them would fit in there!  So I got to baking! 

I took a break for a couple hours around 6 pm so that I could go with Mike to look at cabinets for our bathroom (have I mentioned that Mike is remodeling our bathroom?  The only thing in there right now is a toilet!)  This picture was taken around 11 pm.  Finally all 8 pies are baked!

Being the Martha Stewart that I am *insert strong sarcasm* it just took me a few minutes to wrap up the pies.  NOT!  It was after 12:30 am when Mike and I finally began loading the pies in the back of the Jeep for him to take to work today.  So it might have taken me a while to make them look pretty...but I think they turned out awesome!

 

 

What kind of pie did I make, you ask?  Caramel Apple Crunch.  It's an apple pie with a crumb topping.  After I take the pies out of the oven I sprinkle them with pecans (from Grandmommy) and then drizzle caramel over the top.  It's a slice of Heaven if you top it with some vanilla bean ice cream!

Mike made it to work this morning with all the pies intact and put them on the desks of 6 of his employees, his boss, and a friend before they arrived.  I hope it was a nice morning surprise! 

I still have 3 more pies to bake next week...but I'd say that Pie Bake 2010 was a huge success!