Renaissance Fair Caramel Apple Pie

When I was in middle school, the 7th graders would put on a Renaissance Fair each year. The most common booths were wedding booths and caramel apple booths. These caramel apples were amazing, one of the few good things about middle school, and I always looked forward to them. The kids would bring everything they could think of to put on the apples, and to outdo the many other caramel apple booths. I have lots of fond memories of gummy bears and marshmallows and who knows what else on crisp, tart apples. I decided one day to try to capture these memories in a pie, and lets just say from now on I'll keep them in my head where they belong.

It all started when I got a crème brûlée torch and, wanting to play with it, decided to make some merengue. Of course to make merengue, I first had to make a pie to put it on. I asked my friends what kind I should make, and they asked for apple. But of course, that was too boring, so I had to jazz it up with caramel. All of this now made me remember those fantastic apples from 7th grade, so I figured I'd go all out and add chocolate and yes, gummy bears.

First I attempted to make the crust, but of course when I added the flour I forgot that I had halved the recipe. I tried to make it okay by adding more of the other ingredients, but if you know anything about pie crust, you know this isn't a good idea, so this crumbly mess is what I ended up with.

Then I realized that cooking at the apartment of three boys is an interesting experience, and I really missed my sister's well stocked kitchen. But I learned that a can of Pam can make an excellent rolling pin.

Next, I made some caramel (because of course if I was going to go all out, I had to make everything from scratch) using this amazing recipe. I've used this recipe many times, but to make it even more exciting, one of the people eating the pie is allergic to milk, which means I used coconut milk and "buttery sticks." It actually worked very well, and was still delicious as always.

Finally, I was ready to assemble—crust, apples, caramel,

chocolate chips,

and gummy bears—

and cook.

While the pie was baking, I made the merengue. Well, at least I tried to, but of course nothing in this adventure could work as planned. After 30 minuted of whisking by hand (insane arm workout, try it some time) and 30 minutes of beating with an electric mixer, it still looked like this...

So I lost hope of it getting fluffy, but refused to admit failure, and poured it on anyway.

And torched it, because of course this was the whole reason for the pie.

It ended up being extremely sweet, kind of tangy, and overwhelming, but it sure was an adventure!