Mini Lattice Cherry Pies

Summer is upon us, and that means its pie season. The best fruit pies are always made in the summer with fresh, ripe, in-season fruit. However, this post doesn't have that. This post is about the cutest little mini cherry pies I made yesterday, with pre-made pie filling ::gasp::. While this normally goes against every fiber of my culinary being, I took home some cherry pie filling that was used in class when we scratch-made Danishes last week, and I had been dying to practice a lattice-topped pie so I went with it. At first I was a little apprehensive about doing a lattice top and kept thinking how am I supposed to weave the dough under and over without making such a mess with the filling? Well, thats not the case at all- you'll see.

 For a store-bought pie filling, it was actually very good. Sweet and tart with bright red juicy cherries. I did make the pie crust and this was such an easy, busy weeknight dessert to create. I do not own mini pie dishes, so I swapped them for mini tart shells. These unconventionally wonderful tartlet pans gave the pie crust a pretty fluted design and they popped out so easily, making them almost hand-held. I think I'm going to always make individual pies in these from now on.

Just a side note- I did buy a beautiful box of peaches at Trader Joes recently, which are almost ripe and I will be making a peach pie with it very soon.

Mini Cherry Pies 
(adapted from LCB & me!)

Pie Crust [this is only 1/4 the recipe- all I used]
-  7 1/2 oz AP flour
- pinch of salt
- 1/3 oz sugar
- 5 1/4 oz butter, cold
- 2 1/4 oz cold water

- cherry Pie Filling
- eggwash
- vanilla sugar/ sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350F.

To make the crust [ you can do this by hand also]: In a food processor, mix the flour, salt and sugar. Add the butter and pulse until it looks like a coarse meal. Slowly add in the water and mix until the dough forms, and pulls together into a ball. Form into a disk and refrigerate at least 30 minutes.

Turn out onto a floured surface, roll out to 1/4 inch thickness.

Line up the pie dishes and cut a circle around each one, leaving a 1 inch border. Save scrap dough, chill in fridge- this will be the lattice topping

Place the dough into the tin and let it down naturally, gently shape it and press the excess dough out where the edge of the tart pans are fluted.  Chill dough for 30 minutes.

Roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness, and cut strips 5 inches long, 1/2 inch wide.

Place the cherry filling in the dishes [I don't have a measurement for this, but I had just enough filling to fill 4 mini tart shells almost to the top]. Make the lattice top- as shown below

Use 8 strips per pie. It is basically alternating strips, folding them back and placing one going the opposite way, and then folding them back, then repeating with the alternating strips.

Let pies chill in fridge for another 20 minutes. Eggwash, sprinkle with sugar and bake for 25-30 minutes until the crust is brown and the filling starts to slightly bubbly over the top.

I had extra dough, so I made a heart

Let them cool slightly, and flip out of pans. They should come out with no problem.

Enjoy!