Mini Cherry Pies

Winn Dixie had a sale on cherries -- and Ben and Brandi were coming to visit.
Brandi and I made cherry mini pies as well as coconut custard mini pies. (Ben is responsible for eating most of the cherry ones.)

Ingredients:

Filling

• 4 cups fresh pitted cherries
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• (1 tablespoon fresh lemon zest - optional)

Pie Crust

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for bench and cutters
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 2 sticks chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 4 tablespoons ice water, plus more as needed

   

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 425F. 
2. Make pie crusts
   (Note: this recipe is enough for 48 mini pies, or 24 mini two crust pies)
3. In a food processor, combine the flour, sugar, and salt. 
4. Pulse in the butter until the mixture resembles fine sand. 
5. Pulse in  the ice water to the mixture, maybe a tablespoon at a time.
6. Run the processor just until the mixture rolls itself into a little ball. 
7. If the dough seems  a bit dry, add more ice water by the tablespoonful until it comes together. 
8. Gather the dough into a  ball, place on floured surface
9. Cut dough ball evenly in half. Shape each half into a disk. 
10. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and chill at least 30 minutes.
11. Combine the pitted cherries and 1 cup water in a sauce pan over medium-low heat for 10 minutes. 
12. In a small bowl, whisk the sugar and cornstarch together, removing all lumps. 
13. Add the sugar mixture (and lemon zest if using) to the cherries. 
14. Continue to cook the cherry mixture until it comes to a rolling boil. 
15. Cook 1 minute more, until thickened. 
16. Allow the cherry filling to cool slightly while you prepare the crust.
17. If making 24 pies, roll one dough disk out into a 11-inch round on a well-floured work surface. 
18. With a 2.25-inch round cookie or biscuit cutter (edge lightly dipped in flour) cut 24 rounds from the rolled out disk.  Press together scraps and re-cut as needed.
    (Use the other disk for other pies, such as these Coconut Custard Mini Pies.)
19. Grease one 24 well mini muffin pan - press in pie crust rounds. Make sure to pat down the bottom and the excess coming up the sides.
20. Divide cherry filling evenly into 24 prepared muffin cups using small cookie scoop. (Try to mostly scoop up the cherries)
    (I had leftover sauce - use on anything. You may want to add another cup or so of cherries and make 48 pies...) 
21. Optional: Use crust scraps after cutting circles to make small lattices or decorative pieces for topping.
22. Bake for 12 minutes, or until edges are golden and filling is bubbling. 
23. Cool mini pies in pan on a wire rack.

Carole's Notes:

These have a very nice cherry filling. (Ben LIKES cheery pie, and may have eatem almost 20 in a 24 hr period.)
The pie crust is barely adapted from http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/anne-thornton/mini-cherry-pies-recipe.html - mine are 'healthier' since without the top crust they are lower fat!