Apple Cuteness

What does a person with a million pounds of apples do? Make apple pie! But not just a regular apple pie, mini apple pies. I saw the idea for this on Jayne's blog (The Barefoot Kitchen Witch) and fell in love. I think anything that is miniaturized is awesome and I am a huge fan of making single-sized servings. It's all mental too. I feel better eating 3 mini apple pies than half an apple pie. It's not like I can see evidence of my indulgence if I eat 3 individual servings of mini apple pies that have no connection to one another. With a whole apple pie you can see the damage you've done. In fact, the half that wasn't eaten stares at you wondering why you didn't eat it too.

For the pies I used Carole Bloom's pie dough recipe and McIntosh apples. The little pies were adorable and tasted incredible.

Mini Apple Pies
Pie dough
Apple filling
1 egg, beaten
Sugar for topping (I used Turbinado sugar).

Preheat over to 350 degrees.

Place 4-inch dough circles in the cavities of greased cupcake/muffin pan (press it in to cover the entire cavity and a little above the cavity). Fill the cupcakes with the apple filling. Top the cupcakes with the 3-inch dough circles and press the edges together to seal the pie. Cut small slits in the dough. With a pastry brush or spoon, brush the top of the pies with the egg and then sprinkle with sugar.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden. Remove from oven and cool on racks.

Pie Dough
Source: Carole Bloom's The Essential Baker

1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp granulated sugar
¼ tsp salt
4 ounces (8Tbsp) unsalted butter, chilled
4 ounces cream cheese, chilled
2 to 3 Tbsp heavy whipping cream

In a food processor combine the flour, sugar, and salt. Pulse briefly to blend.

Cut the butter into small pieces and freeze for 20 minutes.

Cut the cream cheese into small pieces and add to the food processor. Pulse to cut the cream cheese into very tiny pieces. The texture should be sandy with very tiny lumps throughout

Add the butter to the food processor. Pulse until the butter is cut into pea-sized pieces, about 30 to 45 seconds.

Sprinkle 2 Tbsp of the cream. Pulse for 10 seconds. Squeeze a small amount of the dough in your hand. If it holds together, don’t add anymore cream. If the dough is still very crumbly, add another tbsp of cream, pulse to blend, then check the dough again.

Roll the dough into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours. Take the dough out of the refrigerator and on a well floured surface roll out the dough to about 1/4-inch thickness. Using a 4-inch cookie cutter or a large cup, cut out six circles (these will be the crust). Gather the dough and roll it out again. Using a 3-inch cookie cutter or a smaller cup, cut out six circles (these will be the pie tops).

Apple Filling
2 large apples, peeled, cored, and cut into chunks
Lemon juice
~3 Tbsp. cinnamon
~1 Tbsp. Sugar

Combine the apples and the lemon juice. Then add the cinnamon and sugar and toss until the apples are coated.

Before the bake.


All done.



Delicious!


The stars of the show.