Mini Apple Pies with Cheese Streusel Topping

Happy new year, folks! Our latest kitchen adventure happened during the holiday season, but it's good to be back to talk about it. Our original recipe for mini apple pies called for Pillsbury pie crusts. Little did we know that everyone else in the city wanted to make pies for christmas. We had one night to bake these goods, and after several trips to about 5 different supermarkets, we decided we needed to experiment on making our own pie crust. We're pretty happy with the result, so here is what we used to make apple pies from scratch:

Crust:  (care of the internet with a few tweaks)

Ingredients: 
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter (1 stick) cut into small pieces
4-7 tablespoons ice water

Process: 

1. Combine the flour, salt and sugar in a large bowl and stir briefly until the mixture is aerated. Add the butter and mix it with the dry mixture until fully combined (some sort of powdery consistency) 
2. Add ice water one tablespoon at a time just until the dough comes together - do not overmix the dough as it becomes tough to handle
3. Shape the dough into discs and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 1 hour 

Disc of crusty dough ready to be chilled for 60 minutes

While the dough is chilling, we prepared the apple filling and cheese streusel. The filling recipe was taken from here. And the streusel was a kitchen creation.

Apple filling: (about 24 mini pies, and a little bit of extra filling) 

Ingredients: 

10-12 apples (we used a mix of granny smiths and fuji apples) 

12 tablespoons of flour

1.5 cups of sugar

4 teaspoons cinnamon

Process: 

1. Wash, peel and remove the apple cores. Then slice into small pieces. 
2. Mix the diced apples with flour, sugar and cinnamon until all of them are coated evenly

Cheese Streusel: 

Ingredients: 

1 cup grated cheddar

5 table spoons evaporated milk

8 tablespoons sugar

12 table spoons flour 

Process:

1. In a mixing bowl, combine all dry ingredients
2. Slowly mix in the milk until texture is consistent (we like to use our hands) 

Here comes the fun part! 

How to put all the pieces together: 

1. Preheat the oven to 400. Add 1 teaspoon of flour to lightly coat a flat and clean surface and place a disc of dough at the centre. 
2. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough until it is about 3mm thick. Use mason jar lids to make circular cutouts of the dough and place lightly in a muffin pan
3. Press the dough against the top edges but make sure it does not touch the bottom of the mold (halfway is best guess).
4.  Add the apple filling until level with the edge of the mold. 
5. Take a pinch of cheese streusel and flatten into a disc that is big enough for the muffin pan mold. Lightly place the disc on top
6. When ready, place in the oven for 18-20 minutes. The crust is not supposed to brown, so don't place it in there any longer.
   

   

   Mini apple pies assembled in a muffin pan right before we popped them in the oven

   
   Enjoy!!!