I love pie, but I'm more prone to whipping up a batch of cookies or brownies when I need a sugary snack. Sometimes I'll even do cupcakes, but those are usually reserved for birthdays.
The other day, I had a mostly full can of pumpkin sitting in my fridge. Yes, I prefer roasting and pureeing my own, but I didn't have any on hand (though I had a few pumpkins on my counter waiting for their treatment) and my sister-in-law has about two dozen cans (her in-laws gave her their food storage because they were moving). Anyway, I needed to use the pumpkin before it went bad. The kids were begging me to make pie.
I don't really like serving my kids a whole slice of pie. They always leave the crust and the little kids never eat a whole slice, no matter how small that slice is. Simon only licks the whipped cream off the top.
Then, I came up with this crazy idea to make miniature pies using my mini muffin pan. This idea pretty much goes back to when I was in Utah in October 2014. My sister had just given birth to the cutest nephew on the planet and I wanted to bake him his first birthday cake (yes, I know he wouldn't be able to eat it). I decided to make a Boston cream pie. I think my sister asked me to. I don't remember. Either way, I hadn't made one in a long time, so it sounded really good.
My sister doesn't bake nearly as much as I do. She has a lot of really amazing, high quality kitchen supplies because she used to work at Bed, Bath & Beyond, but she didn't have a 9" round cake pan (she does now because I gave her crap about it), so I had to improvise. I made Boston cream cup-pies instead. They were perfect.
Back to the mini pies. I made some pie crust and used my fluted 2.5" biscuit/cookie cutter to cut out a bunch of tiny crusts. I fitted them into the mini muffin tin and used a turkey baster to fill them up. I baked according to the canned instructions, but cut the time down a bunch. They came out perfect.
I love them because their cute, bite-sized little pies. Yes, they take a bit more work, but wouldn't they be perfect for a kid party or pot luck or even Thanksgiving if you're feeling really ambitious?
Anyway, if you're crazy like me all you have to do is make pumpkin pie filling according to the can (or your own recipe). Make six pie crusts. I do not like refrigerated ones you get at the store. The quality isn't as good as if you make your own and pie crust is really easy and simple in the first place. Rant over. Use a 2.5" round or fluted cutter to cut out your tiny crusts. You should get 48 from two of the crusts if you roll thin enough. I rerolled once with the scraps to achieve that amount. I wouldn't reroll the scraps more than once so cut your crusts as close to each other as possible. Place the crusts in the mini muffin mold. Use a turkey baster to fill the crusts almost to the top. Bake at 425 for 5 minutes, then lower the temperature to 400 and bake for 20 minutes more. Cool about 5 minutes in the pan then use a toothpick to gently pop the pies out of the tin and cool the tiny pies on a wire rack. You'll get approximately 144 tiny pies out of one batch.
I did not make all 144 tiny pies at once. I did them 48 (or two crusts) at a time over the course of a week and a half as the pies were consumed. I refrigerated the filling in an airtight container between baking sessions.
I'd love to try this with other pie recipes, especially pecan, lemon meringue, and fresh blackberry. When I do, I'll let you know how they turned out.
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