Susie's caramel apple pie

My friend Susie loves apple pie. I wanted to make her one, this being my first adventure of both making a pie crust from scratch (for an actual pie) and making an apple pie. Two things about this recipe bother me (1- shortening, 2- caramel ice cream topping). I have been looking into healthy all-natural alternatives to things like shortening or corn syrup but for the sake that I still consider myself a beginner in the learning process *and* that I was making this as a delicious gift for a friend, I overlooked it.
So the first thing I did was use my pie crust recipe (the same one I used when making those "unnamed pastries" aka "dinosaur claws")
Ingredients:

2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup shortening
1/2 cup water

As always I threw all these ingredients into the mixer's bowl and let the mixer handle that.
Once it was all mixed and doughy, I divided them into two halves (rolled them into balls), put them into a ziploc bag and into the fridge for at least two hours.

mmm, juicy

Now, apple time. Here are my ingredients for the actual pie filling:

3/4 cup white cane sugar
3 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
6 cups thinly sliced apples (I used 3 apples and the pie was heaping)
1/2 cup caramel ice cream topping (I used Hershey's)
1/4 cup chopped pecans

First thing I did was peel and slice the apples into thin bite-sized pieces. Next I mixed the 3/4 cup of sugar, 1/2 tsp of cinnamon and 3 tbsp of cornstarch together into a bowl together.

Next the apples and the sugar/cinnamon/cornstarch mix get together!

 The apple slices should get nicely coated in the mixture. It seems kind of dry at first but the juice from the apples comes out and absorbs the mixture. The bottom of the bowl will fill up with a thin syrupy type apple/cinnamon sauce.

Now I took the pie crust dough out of the fridge and flowered a surface to roll it out on. I rolled one of the balls of dough out into a circular shape, trying to keep it a little bit wider than the size of a pie pan. (Leaving the second ball of dough for the top crust)

leaving excess dough around the border left space for the dough to sink into the pan

Next I carefully maneuvered the limp shell into the pie pan and shaped it out.

..and poured the apple slice mixture into the unbaked pie shell.

see the heaping apples? I think 3 was maybe a bit too much

Next I drizzled the 1/2 cup of caramel over the apples and let it sink into the pie through the apples.

I should have already had the pecans chopped but it slipped my mind until it was their time to enter the recipe, so I chopped 1/4 of a cup's worth of pecans.

..and sprinkled them over top of the apples..

Next I floured the counter again and rolled out the second dough ball for the top crust. I decided to get creative and cut out a star in the middle. I wished I had smaller shapes but all I had was cookie cutters from Christmas - and a star went better than a tree or a gingerbread man. I cut out one big star in the center of the crust top. Actually, I had to do this twice because the first time I tried to lift the dough onto the pie top, it ripped due to lack of flour on the counter surface. So, if any readers intend on trying this recipe, make sure to use plenty of flour on the surface so the dough doesn't stick to your rolling surface. About this time I also preheated the oven to 400 degrees.

Next I "fluted" or "crimped" the outside edge of the crust. I used a fork but I just found this video [How to flute a pie crust] and I like that lady's finger technique (that's what she said)

flutes

When making apple pies, slits in the top crust need to be present to allow steam to escape while baking. Now the pie was ready to head into the oven for 45-50 minutes OR UNTIL GOLDEN BROWN <--that gets old hearing and saying. There should be a better phrase for that by now. Hrmmm..

ready to get baked!!!!

45 minutes later...

Some of the pie juice baked itself out of the seam where the crust was fluted, that's why I was saying I think three apples or 6 cups may be too much, 5 cups or even 5 1/2 would probably be the perfect amount. I don't know how this pie tasted because I gave it away but I heard it was delicious aside from the crust being on the salty side. The salt may need to be cut out or cut down, or it also could be that I cook with coarse sea salt and the bigger salt crystals are too much for this recipe..?.. Hmm, guess I'll have to make more crusts and pies to find out. Who wants one?