Mini Strawberry Pies

Ingredients

• FOR THE CRUST:
• 1 cup Cake Flour
• 1 cup All-purpose Flour
• ½ teaspoons Salt
• ¾ cups Cold Butter, Cut Into 1/2" Cubes
• 2 whole Eggs, Lightly Beaten
• _____
• FOR THE FILLING:
• ½ cups All-purpose Flour
• 1 Tablespoon Cornstarch
• ½ cups Brown Sugar, Not Packed
• ¼ cups White Sugar
• 1 dash Cinnamon
• 1 dash Nutmeg
• 4 cups Halved Strawberries
• 1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract Or Flavored Liqueur

Preparation Instructions

To make the crust:

Mix 1 cup flour, 1 cup cake flour and salt together in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add the cold butter cubes and mix on low for 1 minute, then add the eggs and mix on medium low until the dough forms a cohesive mass. Pat the dough into a disc, wrap in cellophane and place in the fridge.

To make the filling:

In a small bowl mix together the 1/2 cup flour, cornstarch, brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. In a larger bowl, toss the strawberries with the vanilla extract and then toss them in with the dry ingredients.

To assemble the pies:

Preheat oven to 400F. Place a cupcake pan in the freezer.

On a clean surface, roll out 3/4 of your pie dough until it is about 1/8″ thick. Return the remaining 1/4 of the dough to the fridge.

Cut circles in the rolled-out dough using a round that is approximately 3″ in diameter to make a total of 9 circles. Remove cupcake pan from fridge and lightly grease 9 of the cups with butter. Gently press each dough round into greased cups, coming all the way up the edges and leaving a small rim of dough at the top. Patch any holes with a pinch of extra dough from the refrigerator.

Overfill each pie with the strawberry mixture. Roll out remaining dough and slice into 1/4″ to 1/3″ strips. Lay strips of dough across each pie in a criss-cross pattern, pinching each seam together as you go along.

Place the cupcake pan on top of a baking sheet and bake for 30-40 minutes. If at anytime the crust is becoming too brown, cover pies with aluminum foil and continue baking. When done baking, let the pies cool in pan for 30 minutes, then remove and let pies cool completely on a wire rack before serving. Makes 9 pies.