killer apple pie with cornmeal crust and caramel brandy sauce

Double Apple Pie with Cornmeal Crust (the crust is great!)
I didn’t have all the ingredients for this, but I’ll tell you what I substituted and that it turned out well. I’d like to make it with all the right ingredients though

2 ¼ lbs Granny Smith Apples
2 ¼ lbs Braeburn apples
¼ cup all purpose flour
2 Tbsp apple jelly (I didn’t have this, so I omitted it)
1 Tbsp lemon juice
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp nutmeg
1/3 cup sugar
Cornmeal crust dough
wax paper
3 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp butter
1 tsp. sugar
brandy caramel sauce

Preheat oven to 425. peel and core apples; cut into ½ inch thick wedges. place apples in a large bowl. stir in next 7 ingredients. let stand 30 minutes, gently stirring occasionally.

place 1 cornmeal crust dough disk on a lightly floured piece of wax paper; sprinkle dough lightly with flour. top with another sheet of wax paper. roll dough to a thickness of 1/8 inch and 11 inches wide

remove and discard top sheet of wax paper. starting at edge, wrap dough around rolling pin, separating dough from wax paper. place rolling pin over pie plate, and unroll dough over pie plate. gently press dough into pie plate.

stir apple mixture. reserve 1 tbsp juices. spoon apples into crust, packing tightly and mounding in the center. pour remaining juices in bowl over apples. sprinkle apples with 3 tbsp sugar; dot with butter.

roll remaining corn meal dough disk and place dough over filling; fold edges under; sealing to bottom crust and crimp. brush top of pie, excluding the edges lightly with reserved 1 tbsp juices from apples. sprinkle with 1 tsp sugar. place pie on jelly roll pan. cut 4-5 slits on top of pie for steam to escape.

bake at 425 on lower oven rack 15 minutes. reduce oven temp to 350; transfer pie to middle rack and bake 35 minutes. cover loosely with aluminum foil to prevent excessive browning and bake 30 more minutes or until juices are bubbly and thick, crust is golden brown, and apples are tender when pierced with long wooden pick through slits in crust. (I had to bake mine about another 20-30 minutes after the recommended time) cool 1 ½- 2 hours on a wire rack. Serve with brandy-caramel sauce ( I wanted to make this but didn’t have the ingredients, so hopefully next time....)

Cornmeal crust

2 1/3 cup flour
¼ cup plain yellow cornmeal
2 tbsp sugar
¾ tsp salt
¾ cup cold butter cut into ½ inch pieces
¼ cup chilled shortening
8-10 Tbsp chilled apple cider (I didn’t have this so I used 4 Tbsp apple cider vinegar and 5 Tbsp water and it was fine although I’d like to try it the right way)
stir together first 4 ingredients in a large bowl. cut butter and shortening into flour mixture until mixture resembles small peas. drizzle 1Tbsp apple cider along edge of mixture in bowl. using a fork, gently toss a small amount of flour mixture into cider just until dry ingredients are moistened. repeat procedure with remaining liquid. Gently gather dough into two flat disks. wrap in plastic wrap and chill 1-24 hours.

brandy caramel sauce

1 cup whipping cream
1 ½ cups firmly packed brown sugar
2 Tbsp -1/4 cup butter
2 Tbsp brandy (can be substituted with cider)
1 tsp vanilla

bring whipping cream to a light boil in a large saucepan over medium heat; stirring occasionally. add sugar and cook stirring occasionally until sugar is dissolved and mixture is smooth. remove from heat stir in butter, brandy and vanilla. let cool 10 minutes.