Caramel apples and I have had a long and tortured relationship. Whether it's the actual apple covered in impenetrable candy or merely the flavour transferred unsatisfactorily to another food, it has always gone wrong. Try as I might to embrace it, whenever the words "caramel apple" confront me, I know the experience will likely end badly. Yet, my desire for a fulfilling caramel apple experience remains strong. And I find myself unable to resist just one more attempt. One more chance.
So it was when I thumbed through my Apple A Day Cookbook in search of a recipe with which to utilize the plethora of fresh apples that accompanied me home from a recent orchard expedition. And there, on Page 183, I saw it: Caramel Apple Pie. I hesitated. Pie is not a dessert I make often. The ratio of its labour intensiveness to the length of time it remains uneaten makes it impractical. But the recipe lured me in. With its butter and brown sugar and cinnamon. Perhaps caramel apples deserved another chance to impress me.
I pulled out my favourite pie crust recipe and set to work.
I then turned to the Caramel Apple Pie recipe.
As always, a few modifications were necessary. I doubled the amount of cinnamon. Because I like cinnamon. And I added 1/2 tsp. of nutmeg. For the same reason. And finally, I omitted the walnuts. I wanted nothing to stand between me and the caramel apple flavour.
When the pie had been baking for about 15 minutes, I noticed that some of the brown sugar hadn't completely combined with the butter and I feared that it would scorch. In an attempt to prevent this, I added a few pieces of leftover pastry dough to the top of the pie. I reasoned that the fat content of the pastry would ooze out and be absorbed by the surrounding brown sugar. And I was correct.
Another problem solved through the magic of pastry.
When the pie emerged from the oven, it looked and smelled promising and I was eager to discover if it might renew my faith in caramel apples. So eager in fact, that it was still too warm when I cut into it.
But while the resulting piece might not have been pie-shaped, it had other qualities. And as the melted brown sugar and butter oozed down through the layer of apples, I could not persist in my disdain.
All is forgiven, caramel apples. All is forgiven.