3.14159. It’s the mathematical constant that never ends — and the inspiration behind international Pi Day.
If you’re looking to celebrate Pi Day (that’s March 14), look no further than these mini pie recipes from The Ultimate Kids Baking Cookbook by Tiffany Dahle.
These mini pies for pi day are simple to whip up (the cherry pies are just four ingredients) and perfect for small hands. Try baking one of these awesome kid-friendly pie recipes today – and tell us how you like it in the comments.
Crust
- 2 boxes (4 crusts) refrigerated piecrust
- All-purpose flour, for dusting
Apple pie filling
- 2 1/2 cups peeled and chopped apples
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
Cherry pie filling
- 1 21-oz. can cherry pie filling
- 1/2 tsp. almond extract
Prepare
- Preheat oven to 425 F. Set out a 12-well muffin tin (you’ll bake one flavor of mini pie at a time). Set one box of piecrust dough (two pie crusts’ worth) on the counter so that it can warm up a bit as you prepare the first pie filling.
- Make the apple filling: In a large bowl, combine apples, sugar, flour, cinnamon, vanilla and nutmeg. Stir together until the apples are completely coated.
- Make the cherry filling: In a medium bowl, stir together cherry pie filling and almond extract with a spoon.
- Once the filling is ready, sprinkle a spoonful of flour on your work surface. Use a rolling pin to gently roll out one piecrust dough from the first box to 1⁄8-inch thickness. Use a 4-inch round cookie cutter to cut out as many circles as you can from the dough. To get all 12 circles from the dough, knead (squeeze and pinch) the scraps back into a dough ball and re-roll it to fit more circles. Keep rolling dough scraps until you have all 12 circles.
- Place each dough circle into a well of the muffin tin. Gently press dough into the bottom and smooth dough around the sides; it should fit snugly around the entire well with no air pockets. Prick the bottom of the dough with a fork two or three times; this prevents a big dough bubble from forming when they bake.
Assemble
- Spoon the filling evenly among prepared wells. For the apple pies, you’ll evenly divide the entire batch of apple filling. For the cherry, use just 1 to 2 tablespoons of filling so the juices don’t overflow while baking.
- Roll out the second piecrust from your first box and, this time, use a 3-inch cookie cutter to make the top piecrust for each well.
- Cover each mini pie. Pinch the edges of the crusts together to seal. Use a small paring knife to cut four small slits to vent the pie.
- Bake for 15 minutes, or until top piecrust is light golden brown. Use oven mitts to remove tin from oven. Let pies cool in tin for 15 minutes. Use a small spatula or fork to carefully remove the pies and place on a wire rack to finish cooling.
- Repeat the process with the second box of pie crusts to bake the second flavor of mini pies.
Reprinted with permission from The Ultimate Kids’ Baking Book by Tiffany Dahle, Page Street Publishing Co., 2019. Get it on Amazon for $21.99.
This post was originally published in 2020 and is updated regularly.
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