Mini Pies

Are you ready for some dessert?  This year I made mini pies along with a regular apple butter pumpkin pie.  They turned out great, so I thought I ‘d share.

   I think everyone must have their favorite apple pie and pumpkin pie recipes.  So you should use them.  If not I’ll share mine.  I am short on pictures because, well, I don’t remember why.  I just looked at my pictures and there weren’t many.  Oh well.  Start off by chopping up your apples.  For normal pie I usually do thin slices, but for this I thought chunks would be fun.   Put them into a bowl and add lemon juice, flour, sugar, and cinnamon.  Mix that together really well. Next pull out these super cute jars.  When I saw them earlier this fall I instantly thought pies!  However, I talked myself out of purchasing them.  Then more recently Kellee and I somehow got to discussing this idea and I decided to make pies for Thanksgiving. Pull out your pie crust.  I did store bought this time, but I have a crust recipe I love.  It’s better than store bought.  It doesn’t matter what you use. It all works.  Employ your 8 year old daughter since she loves to bake and cook. For the tops of the pies we took the lids of the mason jars and cut out circles for all of the jars. Take the remaining crust and press it into the jars.  Neat, huh? Once you’ve got all of your crusts in your jars add the filling you just made.  We had a little fun with the tops.  I decided to do a cute little lattice design.  Just cut strips out of the circles you cut out earlier.  Bake them in the oven and here’s how they turn out. We made few pumpkin pies as well.  Aren’t they just darling?  Everyone got their own little pie.

Apple Pie Filling 

• 6 cups apples
• 1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
• 1 Tablespoon Flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon

Mix all together.  Put filling into pie crusts.  Put a dob of butter onto each mini pie.  Bake at 425 degrees for about 40 minutes. Apple Butter Pumpkin Pie

• 1 cup Apple Butter
• 1 cup pumpkin
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 tsp nutmeg
• 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp ginger
• 3 eggs beaten
• 3/4 cup evaporated milk

I adapted this recipe from one of my favorite cooks, Paula Deen.