The Intriguing Backstory of This Crazy High Apple Pie
The Blue Owl’s Levee High Apple Pie draws foodies and fans alike to Kimmswick, Mo. (Photo by Elizabeth Maxon)
Foodies waiting in line for an of-the-moment dessert isn’t a new thing. In New York it’s a right of passage: Dominique Ansel, the creator of the Cronut, has a line wrapped around the block of his Soho bakery for his treats each day. Momofuku Milk Bar regularly sees long lines for its Compost Cookies and Crack Pies. And pastry shop Laduree attracts crowds for its traditional macarons, made in Paris each day and flown to New York fresh.
But in Kimmswick, Mo., a suburb 30 minutes outside of St. Louis, the same feverish crowd queues at the Blue Owl Restaurant and Bakery, where baker Mary Hostetter and her team sell an apple pie so delicious, Oprah Winfrey named it to her coveted list of Favorite Things in 2011. Blue Owl’s Levee High Apple Pie, packed with 18 sliced apples in each pie, stands at 9 inches tall and tips the scales at nearly 10 pounds. The pie used to be a local treat to the small community of Kimmswick, but now the Blue Owl ships the distinctive dessert nationwide via website FoodyDirect — during Thanksgiving, Hostetter and her team shipped close to 3,000 pies and cakes.
Blue Owl founder Mary Hostetter carries one of her most popular items: the caramel pecan Levee High Apple Pie. (Photo: Elizabeth Maxon)
“My mom and grandma loved to bake,” remembers Kim Hostetter, Mary’s daughter who now heads up marketing for the Blue Owl. “My grandma made an apple cobbler, so any time we would gather, we would eat that for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
But when Mary found herself divorced with two young daughters, she had to return to work. She started baking and selling her goods from a parking lot at a McDonald’s and at local craft fairs and festivals, selling out daily. One summer day in 1985, she stumbled upon a restaurant space for sale in downtown Kimmswick. The Blue Owl Restaurant and Bakery opened for business soon after.
The Levee High Apple Pie has been a menu item since 1993, after “The Great Flood of ’93” caused the Mississippi and Missouri rivers to rise well above flood levels and soak neighboring towns. Volunteers built a 10-foot-high levee to prevent the riverbanks from flooding Kimmswick. In homage to the workers’ efforts, Mary created a special version of the apple pie she sold at her bakery, packing it 9 inches high with apples, in honor of the levee that saved historic Kimmswick.
For years, the pies were made individually at the bakery, the apples placed by hand using a special shaped bowl, the pie crust mixed by hand mixers. But demand grew exponentially and reached a fever pitch when the pies caught the attention of Paula Deen, then the grande dame of the Food Network. In 2007, Deen’s sons Bobby and Jamie ventured down to Kimmswick to feature the Levee High pie on their Food Network special, Road Tasted, which catapulted Blue Owl into the national food scene.
Blue Owl needed to streamline the baking process and ship the pies nationally to meet demand. “When we were at the Blue Owl, we used the little Sunbeam mixer that you have at home, and made cheesecakes one at a time. We baked just like we did at Grandma’s,” Kim explained. Normally, it would take an hour to bake a pie from start to finish, including hand peeling and hand slicing the apples. “Then I thought, this is not very efficient, I’ve got to find a better way to do this. We need to bake 50 pies at a time.”
In 2011, right before the Levee pie was featured as one of Oprah’s Favorite Things, Kim opened up a separate baking facility and bought industrial-size mixers and ovens. Now in a commercial kitchen, there’s a team of 40 people baking, some of them working overnight, to help them churn out more than 100 pies and cakes daily, along with donuts, cookies, and other pastries.
Blue Owl sells its Levee High pies for about $47 each in its bakery, but the pie is also shipped overnight in a custom cooler for $75 to $100 per pie, including shipping. Price does not temper demand: Blue Owl sold more than 3,000 cakes and pies in the week before and during Thanksgiving, and the bakery sells around 250 pies a week during the Christmas season. That means those 40 bakers peel around 10,000 apples to make those Levee High pies. Whew!
Blue Owl’s business has also grown beyond pies. “We used to sit around 15 people [in the cafe],” explains Kim. Now, she says, “we seat around 200.” The restaurant stays packed for breakfast and lunch, with an hour wait for a table most days. Blue Owl produces wedding cakes and dessert trays and has opened two additional soda fountains and candy stores, called Sweet Shoppes, in nearby towns. The Hostetters have also published nine cookbooks with family recipes and treats from the Blue Owl. And, in case you’re wondering, Mary remarried in 2000, after dating now-husband Jerry for 15 years.
If you can’t get your hands on a Blue Owl Levee High pie, Mary’s recipe for her pie is below:
Levee-High Apple Pie
2 deep-dish pie crusts, unbaked
12 cups of peeled and thinly sliced Granny Smith apples (approximately 14 to 16 large apples)
1 cup sugar
¼ cup flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
Dash of salt
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon sugar
¼ cup milk
Combine apples, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt. Mound apples by hand or use a small, deep mixing bowl for a mold. Invert filling bowl into deep dish pie crust. Dot apples with butter. Cover mounded apples with top crust. Moisten, seal, and flute edges tightly. Brush top crust with a small amount of milk and sugar mixed together. Prick crust to allow steam to escape. Bake at 450°F for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350°F and bake for 1 hour or until crust is golden brown.
Carmel Pecan Topping
1 ½ cups melted caramel (21 ounces)
½ cup chopped pecan pieces
2 tablespoons evaporated milk
Melt caramel completely in microwave. Add evaporated milk and stir until smooth. Add chopped pecans and stir. Spread over pie, starting at base and working up.
Pie Crust recipe
1 cup flour
½ teaspoon salt
1/3 cup butter-flavored Crisco
Cut flour into butter-flavored Crisco. Add salt and stir in enough water to make a stiff dough. Knead slightly together. Chill dough before using.
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