On our way back from our baseball road trip, our last stop was in Colborne, township of Cramahe, located in Northumberland County. The Big Apple.
The Big Apple is the biggest apple in the world. Over 35 feet tall, you can climb on its observation deck to look at the township, the 401, or Lake Ontario in the distance. The structure can hold 653,800 apples. And that’s only one of the things you can do at the Big Apple : you can pet llamas, you can play mini-golf, you can run away from the wild rabbits, you can learn about apples, you can find out how far you are from other cities, and you can watch them make pies in the factory! Fantastic.But, most importantly, you can eat and buy a wide variety of apple-based treats, from pies to apple chips. The cafeteria-style restaurant also offers some fast food and pre-made sandwiches are also available. There is also a gift shop, where you can buy non-edible stuff, such as pie-making stuff, toys, handbags and of course t-shirts. But careful if you have kids – read Barbara Kay’s warning about a whole section of “raucous” and “perverted” t-shirts.
But I digress. The whole point of stopping at the Big Apple is to buy a pie. That is the point. Their pie oven can bake 144 pies simultaneously, and at the time of our visit, 3 164 185 pies had been sold at the Colborne location. Another location is set to open in Muskoka soon.
So I went ahead and bought an Apple Maple Pie. It was the 48 390th one sold, very low compare to favourites such as the Traditional or the Mumble Crumble, with over 1 million sold each. Their pies are quite thick, well worth the 10$ asked for the size you get. The crust is a tad crumbly, but it is fairly light and flaky. It is a bit light in color, but it is still baked correctly. The maple flavour barely came across, I was expecting more. Still, a good pie, worth a quick stop on the 401.
Much better than trying to feed the llamas, which the ladies tried and failed miserably to do.
Warning: do not bother asking for forks if you buy a pie to take out.
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