I love picking apples in the fall-and I’m always left deciding what to do with all of them. I always make applesauce and lately I have been making pies. I always freeze the pies so they last all winter long. I have a super easy tip too on how to freeze your apple pies-just slice your apples and coat them with sugar and whatever else you like for the filling-I use this recipe. Then put a piece of parchment paper in a pie pan, dump in your apples, flatten it out and then pop it in the freezer for several hours or overnight. Then the next day, peel off the parchment paper and you have a frozen pie filling in the shape of a pie. Just put it in a gallon sized freezer bag and stack them in the freezer. When you want to make a pie, just pull it out of the freezer bag and set it on top of your crust in your pie pan and it’s the perfect size! You may want to borrow some pie pans so you can do several at a time. I use this crust recipe when making pies. I love it! It makes two crusts and so I use one and freeze the other crust by rolling it out and then setting it on some parchment paper. Just roll that up and wrap the whole thing in saran wrap and put it in the freezer. That way you can have an apple pie anytime you need a quick dessert.
When I’m ready to make a pie, I treat the crust like you would a normal store bought crust-just let it thaw out before you use it. Then unroll it from the parchment paper, set it in the pie dish and take out your frozen apple filling and set the apple filling right on the crust. Cook as you would a normal pie, 20 minutes at 400 and then 45 minutes at 325. To get the caramel on top, I use these caramel apple wraps:
I just stretched it out a little and it fit perfectly in the center of my pie. I placed it on top immediately when the pie came OUT of the oven. I have not tried baking the pie with the caramel on it, but one time I tried doing that with little caramel bites and the carmel bites turned really hard-so after the baking is what I would recommend. There’s just nothing better than a warm homemade apple pie oozing with caramel!
