Mini Apple Pies

My Thanksgiving desserts had a theme: mini. I wanted to make individual, personal desserts. So along with my mini cheesecakes, I made mini apple pies. You can't have Thanksgiving without apple pie!

My Pinterest Pinspiration came from this Pinterest Pin. Recipe found here. 

Mini Apple Pie

Ingredients:

- Eight cups of apples (I used 7 large granny smith apples, it was about 3lbs of apples)

- 12 Tbsp of flour 

- 1 1/2 cup of sugar

- 4 Teaspoons of cinnamon

- 1/4 - 1/2 tsp of nutmeg (I used in between the two)

- 4 Tbsp of chilled butter (Cut into 24 equal  pieces)

- 2 boxes of Pillsbury Pie Crust (chilled not frozen)

This recipe makes about 24 mini Apple Pies.

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. Peel and Cut all the apples into 1/2 inch bits. Then mix in the flour, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Make sure all the apples are evenly coated.

3. Grease a cupcake pan, then roll out the pie crust and cut circles to cover the bottom of the cupcake pan. I had to try a bunch of different circle sizes, and still think mine were too small.

4. Next fill each lined pie crust cavity with the apple filling. Then put 1/24 of the chilled butter on top of each pie.

5. Roll out the remaining dough, to create a cover for each pie. I cut little circles.

6. Place in the 400 degrees preheated oven for 18-22 minutes, until golden brown.

7. Once cooled down, top with some ice cream and enjoy!

 

Everyone loved these mini Apple Pies, and there was much less of a clean-up with individual pies. The only problem is between peeling and cutting all the apples, and rolling out the dough a few times, these pies seemed to take forever. So they were very, very tasty, just pretty time consuming. It's a Pinterest Success, but I'm not sure if I will ever make these again.

Mini Cheesecakes

Thanksgiving was a huge success this year, mostly because I was only in charge of desserts. I have to thank Pinterest for my delicious desserts; without Pinterest my desserts would have been store bought from Publix.

The first Pinterest Pin I decided to make was Mini Cheesecakes. Here is my Pinterest Pinspiration for these amazing bite size snacks. Here is where the recipe is from.

Mini Cheesecakes

Ingredients:

- Two 8-oz packages of cream cheese (softened to room temperature)

- 3/4 cup of sugar

- Three eggs

- 1 tsp of vanilla extract

- 1 Tbsp lemon juice (I used an actual lemon, not from a bottle)

- Dash of lemon zest (I used about two pinches)

- Mini Nilla wafers (not reduced fat, the other recipe says they float, I just took their word for it)

- 1 can of pie filling (I used strawberry, but you can use whatever you want)

This recipe makes about 60 cheesecake bites.

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mix together, with an electric mixer, cream cheese (make sure it is room temperature, you can also microwave them for 10 seconds), sugar, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice and zest until smooth.

3. Line a mini cupcake pan with mini cupcake liners and place a mini Nilla wafer face-up inside each one.

4. Scoop cheesecake mixture onto wafers, filling the cup about 3/4 full. I found a tablespoon of the mixture was just about perfect.

5. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
6. Refrigerate. Once chilled, scoop on pie filing on top of each mini cheesecake, then chill once more before serving.

7. Then enjoy!!!!

Theses were a huge success, everyone loved them and they were gone pretty quickly. I definitely will be making these again, they were quick, easy, and amazing! Pinterest Success!

Week 17 Theme...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Week 17 falls on Thanksgiving week; since it will be a busy week of traveling, spending time with loved ones, and shopping, I figured I would make this week an easy week. 

Even though I am almost 30 and have a family of my own, I still get to go to my Mom's and enjoy Thanksgiving dinner, with little or no hassle to me. I was only asked to bring dessert. Easy enough.

For this week's Pinterest Challenge I will be making two Thanksgiving desserts. Hopefully the recipes are as tasty as they look. 

Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving! Be sure to eat lots of food!