It started many years ago when my younger sister made an apple pie for a church pie competition. With her first attempt, she placed third. The most remarkable thing was that this elementary school kid, who'd never baked an apple pie in her life, bested more than a dozen other seasoned bakers and pastry chefs. We urged her to write down the recipe, this one was definitely a keeper.
Later that year for Thanksgiving, we pulled out that apple pie recipe. So excited were we to have an award winning apple pie. We followed the recipe to a T. Alas! the pie came out like soup. Was it a fluke? Several attempts later confirmed what we feared: an elementary schooler had caught lightning in a bottle, but as a child is bound to do, had improvised the recipe or misremembered a detail. To the world's misfortune, what she wrote down was different than what she had made.
Many years later, Kimberly-Clark, the company I worked for, held a bake sale as a fundraiser for the United Way. I had already spent time experimenting with pie crusts (already comfortable with bread dough - I wanted to expand my repertoire.) Since it was fall and apples were in season, I decided to make some apple pies. But not just any pie, and not the misremembered recipe. I set out to reinvent the recipe. I looked at her recipe. I researched recipes. Crust. Filling. Crumble? Double Crust? Something else?
I picked the apples. I bought the spices. Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Allspice, Ginger, Clove. I got back to my apartment and got to work. Six hours later I had detailed notes on what I'd done, and three beautiful pies out of the oven. These were the first pies ever created with my recipe. Two pies went to the bake sale. The third was set out as marketing. One of my foodie co-workers raved about the pie. Insisted I give her the recipe.
Within the hour the pie had vanished, the two pies at the bake sale nowhere to be seen. The next day another coworker described how that apple pie was the best they'd ever had, they wouldn't change a thing about it, that they wouldn't even consider adding vanilla ice cream it was already so good. A week later the foodie co-worker reported that she'd finally made my recipe and her family agreed it was spectacular, the best pie they'd ever eaten. And that's when I knew what I had, wasn't the award-winning recipe. It was my recipe.
Since creating this pie recipe six years ago, I've personally made hundreds of them for holidays, for family members, for gifts, for co-workers, and just because. I've had many people tell me I should go into business baking pies, that I'd make a fortune. To me that'd turn a joy into a job, something special into something ordinary.
Then the idea hit me. I could make this pie and sell it to friends and family to multiply my charitable giving. And with the backing of the Flexware Foundation and many generous co-workers, Apple Pies for Angels began in 2018. My original goal was to make and sell 48 pies, and buy Christmas gifts for 12 children-in-need. Instead we made and sold 117 pies, and bought Christmas gifts for 44 children-in-need. The next year, with careful planning and more organization we grew to making more than 300 pies and buying Christmas gifts for 101 children-in-need.
Talking to the Salvation Army last year, we learned that the Flexware Foundation and Apple Pies for Angels was in the top 10 for biggest corporate partners in the Central Indiana Angel Tree (with 86, the other 15 angels were adopted in Valparaiso), that Walmart was #1 with 150. That would have been the goal for this year: make 500 pies and go beat Walmart. That was before the pandemic. Instead now I'm asking for your generosity. If you've ever enjoyed my apple pie, please consider sharing that joy. 100% of every donation to Apple Pies for Angels will go towards spreading joy and buying Christmas gifts for children-in-need. Then next year we'll hopefully get back to the pie factory and make hundreds more apple pies and spread more joy than ever before.
Thank you for your incredible generosity, and for making this the Best Christmas Ever.
-Evan Foote
