Salted Caramel Apple Pie- a pie in many parts, slice 1: Salty Dog

Pre-oven pie.

I have this thing for salted caramel. I might....actually have a problem. To me, salted caramel is the perfect PERFECT representative of savory sweet. Smooth, sweet, rich and buttery, with a hint of savory salt at the end. Can you taste it right now? Delicious. If you learn one thing from this blog, it will be that I'm a savory sweet kind of girl.

Today I'm playing with my apple pie recipe to see if I can turn it into a salted caramel apple pie, without having to go FULL BOAT on committing to a caramel sauce (four kids + it's still Summer = burning your delicate caramel sauce. major bummer). I omitted my usual nutmeg and cinnamon, used a mix of light brown and granulated sugars, some coarse ground salt, and....butter. I love butter. And apples, naturally.

The result was very tasty, but not salted caramel.

But still good.

But not salted caramel.

I liked it enough to post the recipe anyway with the note that it's a neat, slightly savory twist on a regular apple pie, and the promise that I will continue to work on the salted caramel. I WILL conquer that pie. Plus maybe it's fun to see the evolution of a recipe? Yes? No? Just me?

Without further ado, it's a Salty Dog Apple Pie (hey, I live by the sea):

Ingredients

• Pie crust (recipe here)


• 6 to 8 apples peeled, cored, and thinly sliced*


• 1/4 lemon, juiced


• 1/3 cup light brown sugar


• 1/4 cup granulated sugar


• 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse ground salt


• 2 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces

  
Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out pate brisee into a circle with a diameter slightly larger than your pie plate. Press pastry circle into the pie plate. Set aside.

Combine the apples, lemon juice, and sugars in a mixing bowl and pour the mixture over your pie crust. Sprinkle the apples with butter- get the butter dotted throughout those apples. Roll the rest of the pate brisee out nice and thin, and gently place over the top of the apple mixture. With a knife, trim the excess pastry from the edges of the pie plate. With the same knife, make a few slices in the top of the dough to vent (here's your chance for a fun pattern. you can also use small cookie cutters to make shapes in the top of the dough after you've rolled it out and before you put it over the apples). Bake until the pastry is golden brown, maybe 45-50 minutes or so.


Some vanilla bean ice cream would be REALLY GOOD with this.

* I used gala apples because I love them- they're a little tart, and easy to find around here. But use the apples you like, Granny Smith, Cortland....go for it.