Bite-size mini apple pies that are not only adorable but perfectly flaky and sweet. With the holiday season coming up, surprise your families and friends with this recipe!
Best apples for apple pie
Gala: easy to find almost in any grocery store, it’s affordable, it’s sweet, it’s balanced and most importantly, it gets the job done!
Honeycrisp: these apples are crispy and sweet, probably one of my favorite apples in the market, if you want a pie filling that’s fresh and sweet like honey, then use Honey crisp
Granny smith/green apple: if you want your pie filling to be a little more on the tart side, then you can choose to use Granny smith or any type of green apple instead!
How to make pie crust from scratch by hand
If you do not have a food processor at home and want to make pie crust from scratch, then wow… why would you want to do that?! Just kidding:p it’s actually really easy and fast to make your own crust from scratch. All you need is your hand, some cold butter, flour, sugar+salt, water, and egg yolk and that’s it! Here are the exact steps for you to make your own pie crust.
After you combine the butter and flour together, the mixture should be crumbly and lumpy(this is good because the more crumbled they are the flakier your pie crust will be). Add sugar and salt to the mixture, followed by egg yolk and ice-cold water.
Mix all the ingredients together and your crust dough should be done! store this in your fridge for at least 1 hour or overnight until they are needed.
Special ingredient
In this recipe, I decided to add a special ingredient to create a toasty, creamy, thick apple pie filling – Condensed milk (caramelized). This ingredient is what really set this recipe apart from the other apple pie recipes. the caramelized condensed milk brings in such a unique flavor. Biting into this apple pie will feel like a soft, fresh cinnamon butterscotch apple goodness.
Tools that you might need
Food processor: for anyone who does not want to make the pie crust by hand, a food processor can fasten your crust-making process, and also easier to create a flakier crust
Muffin tray: perfect size for mini apple pies
Cookie cutter: cutting out shapes for the pie
Rolling pin: roll out thin layers of pie crust
Brush: for egg brush
Preparation Process
prepare 3 apples, wash and peel the skin off
Remove the core as well, and cut them into small cubes
add in white sugar and brown sugar
also add in cinnamon, and vanilla extract, and leave this mixture to marinate while we caramelize the condensed milk
add in butter until they melt, then pour in condensed milk make sure you are constantly stirring!
When the condensed milk turns brown, add a splash of water, continue mixing for a little bit and add the marinated apple mixture in
add in cornstarch after the apples have been cooked down a bit, and stir until not cornstarch can be seen
pour apple pie filling in a bowl to chill and dust your working surface with some flour
roll your pie crust flat to 1/8 inch and cut them into small circle shapes
place the cutout pie crust into a muffin tray
put in a scoop full of filling in each mini apple pie, cut out strips from leftover pie crust, and place them in a zigzag form on top
brush on a layer of egg wash and dust on sugar, then it’s ready to bake!
use a knife to remove them apple pie from the tray and enjoy~
Mini Apple Pie
Make Kenma's favorite food from Haikyuu!!! Mini apple pies~
Ingredients
Pie Crust
- 2+ 1/4 cup flour
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup cold butter
- 1 egg yolk
- 1/3 cup of ice water
Apple sauce filling
- 3 chopped apple
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 4 tbsp butter
- 1/3 cup condensed milk
- 2 tsp water
- 2 tbsp cornstarch
- 2 tsp lemon juice
Toppings
- 1 egg
- sugar
Instructions
- in a bowl, combine together flour and cold diced butter with a food processor or hand
- make sure you work fast because you don't want the butter to melt during this process
- the pie crust should be chunky/lumpy after this step, otherwise, you have overmixed it
- Add in sugar, salt, and ice water
- kneel until a dough forms
- wrap the dough in saran wrap and leave it in the fridge for at least 30 min or overnight to chill
- while the dough is chilling, peel 3 apples
- remove the cores and cut them into small cubes
- toss the apple cubes in brown sugar, white sugar, vanilla extract, and cinnamon to marinate
- in a pan, add butter
- once the butter is melted, add condensed milk to caramelize
- keep on stirring until the condensed milk turns brown and then add a splash of water to the pan
- add in the marinated apple mixture
- cook until the sauce thickens
- add in corn starch until they're well combined
- put the apple sauce filling on the side to cool down
- take the pie crust out of the fridge and roll them until they are 1/8inch flat or as thin as you can
- using a cookie cutter or a mason jar cap to cut out small circle shapes
- place them into cupcake/muffin trays
- using an ice cream scooper fill each of the pies up
- cut up some linear-shaped crust doughs, and place them on top in a zigzag form
- crack 1 egg and mix well to be used as egg wash
- brush eggwash evenly on top of all the pies
- dust some sugar on top
- bake at 350F for 45 min
- enjoy~ ※\(^o^)/※
Notes
- in this recipe, since we are making the pie crust by hand, make sure that you are not working under high temperatures as that will result in a soft dough, and the soft dough will result in a dull crust
- if you are using your hand, try your best to smudge the butter into the flour to create more of a crumbly dough
- I recommend making the pie crust dough a day ahead so that it has a better consistency and is easier to work with
- the chunkier your crust is the more crispy it will be when baked, so therefore if you have a food processor to mix the butter and flour together, please do so!!
- make sure that you are constantly stirring while caramelizing the condensed milk to prevent burning
- you can replace cornstarch with potato starch
- adding lemon juice to the apple sauce filling can preserve the freshness of the apples. and avoid it from turning brown
- add in 1 tsp of nutmeg to the apple pie filling for additional flavor!
For more Haikyuu boy’s favorite recipes click here!
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