Revelstoke loves their apple pies. This year, the St. Francis Catholic Church made about 1,250 of them for their successful annual fundraiser.
“We say we’re going to cut it off, but you can’t say no,” said Sharon McCrae, who was working the front table at the church hall on the second of two pickup days last week. “We make pies until the apples run out.”
I stopped by the church last Wednesday, Sept. 28, to see what goes into making all those yummy deserts. Claudette Kendal gave me the numbers:
2,800: The pounds of apples the church purchased for the pies. That 3.5 800-pound bins.
2,400: The pounds of apples that will likely go into the pies. “This year the apples are bigger so they’ll go further because there will be less waste,” explained Kendal. (We didn’t ask what happens to the leftover apples.)
250: Kilograms of flour.
170: Kilograms of sugar.
130: Kilograms of lard.
60: Estimated number of volunteers that help out.
29: The number of years the church has held the fundraiser. “We’re not positive,” added Kendal. “Nobody realized we’d be doing it this long.”
3: The number of days it takes to make all those pies. The pastry is made on day one and the apples are peeled, sliced and loaded into the pies on days two and three.