A lot of the past week has been spent dealing with a water-leaking-through-the-ceiling-and-subsequent-costly-repair situation. Normal me would be a little stressed but calm and collected. Increasingly pregnant and emotional me, however, has a much lower threshold for meltdowns and seeing our 90% remodeled living room torn down to the studs almost pushed me over the edge. Honestly, when Bisou started meowing like crazy to alert us to the indoor rain my first impulse was to lay on the floor and cry. My second impulse was to distract myself with pie, and that’s the one I acted on. Whew! I filled a buttery crust with a mountain of fresh apples, lots of cinnamon and a hefty drizzle of homemade caramel, then baked it to golden, mouth watering perfection. And it was gooooood. So good, in fact, that we temporarily forgot all about the plumbing disaster and that’s saying something!
You may have seen me post about these pink apples a couple weeks back on instagram; they’re called mountain rose apples and you can find them at a handful of Hood River orchards and Portland-area markets in the fall. They have sweet, bright pink flesh (really, they’re that pink in real life!) and a satisfying, crisp bite. I look forward to them every year and have been dreaming of turning them into pie since last fall (when I used my supply in this baked oatmeal). If you can’t get your hands on pink apples, any sweet-tart, crisp apple will work perfectly for this pie. I mean, what apple wouldn’t go with gooey salted caramel and a buttery, flaky crust? You can’t go wrong.