A tale of two pies

For Thanksgiving this year, I was asked to make two pies. Guys...I'm finally arriving as someone who is good at making pies! I wasn't overwhelmed by this, in fact I was excited. The recipes I settled on can be found through these links: triple berry and salted caramel apple. Last Christmas (I think, it all tends to blur together) I asked for some pie crust cutters to make cute shapes with the crust. So my plan was to use a leaf for the triple berry and an apple for the salted caramel apple pie. I've mastered lattice tops, they're really not as difficult as everyone seems to think they are. Remember weaving paper strips in elementary school art? It's the exact same thing. Easy, I promise. Anyway, I wanted to try something different.
I made the triple berry first. The recipe calls for cooking the berries down with sugar and such, and the mixture was still quite liquidy when I poured it into the bottom crust. I briefly considered placing a few large braids for the top crust instead, but then I thought cutting out leaves would be easier and I should stick with what's easy. I folded the crust in half to make placing it on top of the pie easier. Aaand the filling spilled out of some of the cut outs and ruined their shape. I maintain it was the ugliest pie I have made yet. On the plus side, though, the filling did hold together when it was time to slice and serve. It was a good, simple berry pie, just not the pretty one I had in mind.

Now on to the salted caramel apple. Normally I like to make pies the night before I need them to decrease the stress. But this one I tried to make the morning of Thanksgiving for dinner later that day. I made the salted caramel sauce about a week in advance, again to decrease stress. I got the top crust on and it was dang adorable and I was feeling super proud of myself. But then I realized I forgot to pour the sauce over the apples before adding the crust. No biggie, I thought, we'll just pour the sauce over top when we eat it and stuck it in the oven. Then I sat down for a few minutes and realized...I ALSO FORGOT THE DAMN SUGAR. At this point, I completely melted down. Crying in the kitchen Thanksgiving morning over pie. In my pajamas. Ryan convinced me we had time to make another pie, including pie crust. So we zipped over to Walmart to get more apples and crust ingredients. In our pajamas. I then made new crusts, praying they would be as good as the others. While the crusts chilled in the fridge, I got myself ready for the day. Then I remade the whole dang pie. Making sure to include the sugar and the salted caramel sauce.

I had a Clark Griswold type moment when it was in the oven and I realized it was going to turn out in time for dinner and still be cute. (You know the scene at the end of Christmas Vacation where he's thinking "I did it" after everything went wrong? I felt like that.) And I have to say, that pie is the best pie I have ever made. It's amazing. I highly recommend trying it. Don't let my stupidity deter you. This Thanksgiving I made the ugliest and cutest pies yet, and I'm just going to keep getting better.