For a fun twist on a traditional apple pie, fill cored apples with a combination of caramel sauce and cinnamon apples. Top them with pie crust and bake! A perfect fall dessert for serving to guests.
1 Preheat oven to 375.
2 Combine sugar and cinnamon. Set aside.
3 Cut pie crust to form 36 even strips (6 small strips per apple). (You may have to get a little creative with this to transform a round pie crust into rectangular strips. I sliced my pie crust in half first and then cut the end and tops off to turn each half into a rectangle. Then I made 18 skinny strips out of each rectangle. This meant I had a bit of pie crust from the sides and tops of each rectangle, so I just baked those into little crisps for my kids to have as a snack.) Place the pie crust strips on a baking sheet and refrigerate them until ready to assemble.
4 Cut the core out of 6 apples, leaving about 1/2 inch near the peel. Save the filling if you can easily separate it from the core (but don't worry if you can't, that's what the extra two apples are for). Transfer the cored apples to a baking dish.
5 Melt butter in the microwave and combine with 1 Tbsp of sugar-cinnamon mixture. Brush this cinnamon butter on the inside of the 6 cored apples (you won't use all of it; save what is left for topping.)
6 Chop the remaining two apples into small pieces (the smaller the better). Toss chopped apples with 2 Tbsp of sugar-cinnamon.
7 Fill the cored apples with half the caramel sauce, then the chopped apples, then finish with the remaining half of the caramel sauce.
8 Top each apple with pie crust strips, arranged in a lattice (tic-tac-toe) pattern.
9 Brush remaining melted butter over each pie crust and sprinkle with remaining sugar-cinnamon.
10 Bake for 30 minutes or until filling is bubbling out and crust is golden. (If the crust starts to get too dark before the end of bake time, lightly cover the dish with foil.)
11 Serve immediately. These are great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream! The liquid that forms in the bottom of the pan is a dreaming topping to spoon over the ice cream.
