Apple pie in a blog about public relations? Read this article and you won’t only bake the most delicious apple pie, it will also help you with the decisions about your pr-plan and the execution of it.

Imagine the next scenario: your mother is turning 75 in a month and there will be 100 guests. You would like to do something special so you decide to bake the most delicious apple pie, because your father used to do so when he was still alive. It has been a while, so you look up the recipe to see which ingredients you need (hint 1 why good PR is just like apple pie). You pick the ingredients with care (hint 2) and when possible: buy biologic products, you will taste the difference when you use good products. Beautiful ‘Goudrenetten’ or Jonagold, daity butter, raisins, currants, lemon, caster sugar, vanilla sugar, salt, cinnamon, self-rising flour and an egg.

Preparation (hint 3)

1. The dough

• Cut the butter into cubes and let it reach room temperature. Grate half of the lemon.
• Take a clean glass dish. Mix self-raising flour, salt, sugar and vanilla sugar.
• Sprinkle the butter cubes with lemon zest.
• Knead the butter through the dough mixture until it’s a homogeneous (nice smooth) mass.

2. The apples and the cake

• Put the raisins in lukewarm water.
• Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
• Grease the baking tray with butter, or use parchment paper and sprinkle with a very thin layer of flour.
• Break the egg into a bowl and beat it with a fork until it’s a foamy substance.
• Cover the baking sheet with the dough and make sure that the whole shape is covered, also the edges, the thickness should be about 1 centimeter.
• Peel the apples, remove the core and cut the apple into slices (not too thin, 2 cm at the top).
• Lightly press the apple slices with the thin layer into the dough. This can be done in carré or in half circles – whatever you prefer, for the taste it doesn’t matter.
• Decorate with cinnamon powder and the rolled raisins.
• Push the edges of the dough slightly up in order for the apple slices to be well covered with dough at the edges. You will get a thick, upright edge with crispy crust (yumm!).
• Brush the dough borders with the beaten egg, which gives a nice golden brown color (hint 4)

Baking

• Put the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 15 minutes.
• Set the temperature to 175 degrees and bake for another 50 minutes.
• Increase the temperature to 220 and bake the cake in about 15 minutes – this is different for each oven – so try it out first if you don’t know your oven very well (hint 5).

Serving

This depends on the atmosphere you would like to create, whether you serve the pie on a chic covered table as a dessert or if your guests get the pie with their coffee or tea while sitting at small tables (hint 6). You can put the pie on the baking plate while serving it on the bufet table to give your guests the opportunity to put their own slice of cake on their saucer. Another option is to pre-cut the cake and serve it on plauteaus on the covered tables.

Enjoy

Take the time to enjoy the apple pie together. Ask if you can have a little word and tell why you have chosen to serve this apple pie in this way, and why it’s so nice to celebrate this birthday together – you will make this apple pie part of a memorable moment (hint 7).

Thank

A week afther the party, send a little thank you to all the guests accompanied with pictures from the party and the apple pie of course. Refer to what has been said that night, how much fun it was and the plans of the cousins to organize a reunion (hint 8).

To the point – good PR is the same as good apple pie

You probably got the clue. What would happen when you would decide to use ‘Granny Smith” instead of ‘Goudrenetten’, semi-skimmed milk instead of full milk or decide to leave the egg. Oh, and let’s replace the dairy butter with margarine. And while we’re at it, we might as well not put apples in it – because it’s too expensive after all and all that peeling and cutting and decorating is taking way too much time. Or, also a classic case: you do everything according to the recipe but you’re not paying too much time and attention to the ‘getting together’. And when the moment is over, you don’t send the little thank you because you forgot to charge the phone and weren’t able to take pictures.

You might laugh about it, but unfortunately this happens way too often with PR plans. You develop a concept and plan (the recipe) together and everyone is happy. But then the execution (ingredients and production) starts and the trouble begins. No time, can’t it be a little cheaper, can we do this with less people etcetera. Yes that’s all possible, but what do you think the end result is going to look like?

People, PR is just like apple pie – once you start bargaining with the ingredients, the preparation, the production and/or the execution, don’t expect the pie to have a good taste, the party to be succesful and the end result to be fantastic.

Want to see examples of succesful apple pies? Click here and here.

Would you like to request a recipe or order an apple pie? Call Mabelle or Layana.