Mini Hand Pies

I absolutely love decorative baking. I had seen hand pie molds in a variety of shapes, ordered them, then I baked them! They can be a little fussy, but I figured out a few things, so it was pretty good after that! For these little pies I decided to use canned pie fillings and that worked out pretty well.

I made my own pie dough, but you could easily use ready-made refrigerated crusts for this project, you would need to roll them out a little to start.

• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 cup Crisco
• water

First, make your pie dough.

Add the flour, salt, sugar and Crisco to a deep bowl. Cut in the shortening using a pastry cutter, you can also use your mixer with your whisk, or your hands for this step. Now add cold water a few tablespoons to start, then add a tablespoon or so at a time till you get the right consistency.

Now pre-heat your oven to 375*

Now roll out the dough, enough for a pie or 2 at a time.

Cut out your desired shape, line your tart maker, add filling of your choice. It only takes a tablespoon or 2 to fill the shapes. Each shape needs a different amount, so put what will fit, without over filling each tart.

Now brush your pies with heavy cream and sprinkle them with sugar. I used cinnamon sugar for the apple pies and regular sugar for the cherry pies.

Now place your sheet pans of pies into the pre-heated oven.

Bake for about 30 minutes. When done baking, place the pies on a wire rack to cool. This keeps the bottom crust from getting soggy.

When the pies have cooled, pick you out a pie, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy!!