There’s been a lot of talk about Mini Pie Pops lately around the food blogosphere. In fact, I’ve heard them touted as the “new” cupcake! These adorable treats are capturing hearts and minds and are making mouths water everywhere. Maybe it’s because of their cute size, or the fact that they’re on a stick, or maybe, just maybe, it’s because you can make an endless number of fillings for them to satisfy just about every sweet tooth! In any case, today I decided to make these delicious babies. Never mind that I’ve never made a homemade pie crust before! Several bloggers have written how they’d never made pie dough until they made pie pops and declared there was nothing to be afraid of. I figured, if they can do it, I can too! Little did I know… (We’ll get back to that in a sec.)

I didn’t have a clear plan for what flavors I wanted to make so I browsed my pantry and pulled out random items, hoping for some inspiration. Here’s what I found.

I only had time to attempt two flavors today so I went with the traditional Apple Pie and thought a Chocolate Marshmallow Creme sounded good. One worked and the other didn’t. Can you guess which was which?

First, I prepared the pie dough, wrapped it up and put it in the fridge to chill for about an hour. To make things simpler you can use a store-bought pie pastry. (Oh, how I wish I had!) I should have known the pastry recipe wasn’t the one for me when it said to mix the egg and sugar mixture with the flour, salt and butter mixture with your hands. I don’t know about you, but that is just too goopy for me! While I was able to make a bunch of pie pops with the dough, it was very dry and became difficult to work with. The end result was more of a cookie dough than a pastry, but thankfully, it tasted good.  Next time, I am trying a recipe that calls for the food processor. That machine has barely seen the light of day since my engagement party (oh, 22 years ago), but I can’t wait to bring it out and save my hands from the messy work!

In any case, I used a round cookie cutter for my Apple Pie Pops. I laid the 1/8″ thick circles out in a jelly roll pan on a Silpat mat. Be sure to leave a few inches between them so you’ll have room to work. Place a 6 inch cookie or craft stick on the circle so that it covers about 2/3 of the dough, you’ll need it to support the weight of the pop. I chopped up some of the apples in the Comstock More Fruit Apple Pie Filling as the pieces are too large for these small pops. The filling has a nice flavor to it but feel free to add some cinnamon or apple pie spice to kick it up a notch. I added some soft raisins to give it more texture. I like to use Sunmaid Baking Raisins. (Yes, that’s a little secret of mine.)

Next, I cut out the circles for the tops of the pie pops. Here’s another little secret: After you cut it out, roll it gently with your rolling pin again, just enough to make it slightly larger than it originally was. If you use the same size circle it is likely to tear once you try to piece the top and bottom together. Before you carefully place the second circle on top of the first, take some water and wet the perimeter of the circle (or whatever shapes you’re working with). For jobs like this I use a clean paintbrush I keep handy for baking. Pinch the top and bottom pieces together, making sure the pop is well sealed. To get the crimped pie look, take a fork and gently press the tines around the edges of your pop, or you can cut a small piece of cookie stick (shhh, it’s a secret!) and use that to create an edge around your pop. Personally, I liked how that came out better. Here’s an example of that edge I did on a heart shaped pop.

At this point, you are nearly ready to pop it into your preheated oven. (Mine was set to 425 degrees.) Before you do, take a fork or a metal cake tester and prick a few, tiny holes in your pop to let it vent. For the Apple Pie Pop, I brushed the top with melted butter and sprinkled Cinnamon Sugar on top before baking it for approximately 8 minutes.

The second pop flavor I made was supposed to be Chocolate Marshmallow Creme. I mixed up some chocolate pudding with some Marshmallow Fluff and threw in some semi-sweet chocolate chips. I know, they look a little like E.T. on a stick, but what can you do?

The combo sounds good though, right? Well, it would have been except that the chocolate marshmallow mixture all but evaporated in the oven and we were left with a bit of chocolate chips inside and nothing else! As I said earlier, this was my first attempt at making pies. Now I know why some pie fillings are added after the pie shell is baked! I do have another filling in the fridge just waiting to be taste tested after it is baked in a pop. I mashed up a banana, added sugar, some corn starch for thickening and some chopped semi-sweet chocolate chips. I know it is going to make one heck of a Chocolate Banana Pie Pop!

As an alternative to the butter and cinnamon sugar topping, you can leave the pop plain and do a glaze afterward while it is still warm. For the Chocolate Marshmallow pops I brushed the top with egg yolk and used some sanding sugar. I loved the way it looked and it gave it a sweet flavor boost. (Now if only it had some filling in it!) You can see what it looks like in the first photo in this post.

Here’s a shot of some of the little suckers I spent a good part of the day with today.

Hey, it could have been worse! Would love to hear your thoughts on this post so leave a comment (I write back!) and share the love by forwarding and/or tweeting this post to your friends and followers!

Have a sweet day!

~ Paula

P.S. After I published this article, I came across a list of hottest food trends for 2011. Guess what made the top of the list? You guessed it, PIES! Check out the article here.

Yesterday was a Saturday and Janis and I set aside our families and a full day to attend a baking class together. To say we were excited for weeks would be an understatement. We kept talking about it almost daily and were looking forward to perfecting our cupcake decorating and chocolate dipping techniques.

Ever go to a seminar or workshop and discover that what you were expecting to learn was not at all what the program was about? That’s what happened to us. The instructors were very nice, fed us a delicious breakfast and lunch and answered all of our questions patiently, but they didn’t teach us very much during the 5 hour class.

Rather than learn how to elegantly dip cake balls in chocolate, I watched as the instructor let everyone struggle with this step and then I finally shared an easier method with my group. (Tip: Sometimes a spoon works better than a two-pronged fork.) It was painful to watch the instructor give up on coaxing the white chocolate to the desired consistency for dipping. Even after she threw in a few tablespoons of shortening it was lumpy and thick and unusable.

When it came time to decorate our cupcakes, piping was done with a plastic bag snipped at the corner, no tips. The decorating technique we learned was how to shape almond paste into cute carrots and apples. These were used to top our Caribbean Carrot Cake Cupcakes and Caramel Apple cupcakes. The rest of the class was spent making the three types of cupcakes (we also made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache) and cake balls, which Janis and I already knew how to do.

So what did this class teach us? By asking a lot of questions we garnered a bunch of helpful baking tips. We also learned we shouldn’t be afraid of attending a more professional level class next time. We are well past the basic stage of baking thanks to Janis’s many years in her own catering business and my years of growing up with a mother and grandmother who were both excellent bakers and cooks.

Here are some photos of our day.

Basting the Caramel Apple Cupcakes

Decadent Chocolate Fudge Cupcake

Janis's Perfect Carribean Carrot Cupcake

Thanks for reading!

~ Paula