Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir in sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, cardamom, salt, nutmeg, and water. Stir until the mixture comes to a rolling boil, then remove from heat.

Peel, core, and slice apples, and add to a medium-sized bowl. Sprinkle with lemon juice and toss with flour, making sure the flour is equally distributed. Roll out half of the pastry, fit in a 9" pie plate. Trim the excess pastry, leaving ½" of pastry hanging past the rim of the pie plate. Save the trimmed pastry for later. Arrange the apples in the pie plate.

Roll out the remaining crust over a cutting board. Using a pastry wheel, cut dough into ½" strips. ​Don't have one of those fancy tools? No problem, just use a knife, or "treat yo' self" and purchase one.

Lay one of the center (longest) pieces of pastry dough over the middle of the pie. Continue working towards the edge, using every other piece of dough. Weave the remaining pieces (over and under) in the opposite direction until all the pieces are used up.

If there are extra pieces, combine them with the excess dough that was trimmed earlier. Roll out the extra dough on a cutting board. Use cookie cutters to cut out decorative leaves, or other shapes to add to the top of the lattice (optional). Fold the ends of the lattice strips under the bottom crust and crimp the edges.

Carefully pour the caramel mixture through the holes in the lattice, making sure you distribute the caramel over the entire pie.

Place pie on a cookie sheet, in case it boils over, and bake for 15 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 350F, and bake for an additional 50 minutes, or until the caramel beings to ooze out of the lattice, and the pie is nicely browned. Cool completely before serving. If you are ready to throw all caution to the wind, serve with vanilla ice-cream. I dare you!