MINI CHERRY PIE RECIPE
Nothing beats simple and sweet like Cherry Pie. As a kid, I wasn’t a fan of cherries or cherry pie, but over time my taste buds have flourished and I’ve learned to love cherry pie as much as I do any dessert! My husband is also a sucker for this treat, and one year for Valentines’ I created the most adorable individual heart-shaped cherry pies for him.
Blog posts contain affiliate links. When you click on these links I earn a small commission that helps keep this blog running and support my family. If you have any questions, feel free to read my disclaimer and privacy policy. Thank you!
These are super easy to make! In fact, even if you didn’t have the time, energy, or desire to make homemade dough or cherry filling, you can still purchase premade pie crust and canned cherry pie filling and get the same dessert. And it can just be our secret, no need to tell anyone else about those store-bought ingredients! Haha!
Going homemade is as easy as pie too. For my pie crusts, I use a very basic pie dough recipe. Flour, butter, and a tiny bit of salt, sugar, and water. Wa-la, pie dough! Just roll that dough out on a flowered surface and use cookie cutters to create the shape of the individual pies you want (I specifically used a heart cutter for Valentines).
I don’t want to fool you into thinking I hand-pick cherries and de-cored them to make my filling. Who has time for that!? I buy a bag of frozen cherries. This is as close as you’ll get to using fresh cherries, and much less complicated. I used this recipe from Texas Homesteader (see below) for my cherry pie filling. It makes 1 cup or you can duplicate to make more! I doubled the recipe for both the dough and cherry filling recipes to make about 6-8 mini pies.
Find more useful items for this recipe here!
Texas Homesteader Cherry Pie Filling
Ingredients
- 1 cup Frozen or canned red tart cherries thawed for 24 hours in the refrigerator
- 1/2 cup Reserved drained cherry juice
- 1/3 cup Sugar
- 1 HEAPING Tablespoon Cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla
- 1 teaspoon Lemon juice
Instructions
- WHISK together 1/2 cup cherry liquid, 1/3 cup sugar, 1 HEAPING Tablespoon cornstarch in a saucepan.
- Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Boil until thickened and mixture begins to bubble.
- Add 1 teaspoon lemon juice. Return to a boil and boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly.
- Add reserved cherries all at once. Return to a boil, stirring constantly but gently.
- Remove from heat, stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla.
Ingredients
- PIE DOUGH
- 1 1/4 cups All-purpose flour, unbleached
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 1 tbsp Sugar
- 1 stick of cold unsalted butter, unsalted - cubed
- 3 tbsp Water
Instructions
- In a mixer stir together flour, salt, and sugar.
- Using a dough blending blade (I use my Kitchen Aid dough paddle), slowly add cubed butter one piece at a time.
- Dough will start to form, this usually takes a few minutes. Once forming starts, add gradually add water until the dough forms into a ball.
- Uses dough immediately by rolling on a floured surface or wrap in plastic and store in the refrigerator until needed.
Mini Pie Instructions
- Prep a cookie sheet with parchment paper and preheat the oven 425 degrees.
- Roll pie dough out on a flat, floured surface. Cut out hearts (or any other shape). You’ll need two per pie.
- Place heart cutouts on the cookie sheet.
- Add a tablespoon of pie filling in the center of the heart.
- Place another heart cutout over the filled one on cookie sheet.
- Cut a small “x” in the center of each pie (or you can do as pictured with a heart cutout).
- Crimp the edges with a fork.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until slightly browned.
- Let cool on pan before removing.
Pin It!
2 Comments
Julie
If you buy frozen cherries where do you get your reserved cherry juice?
Jamie
Hi Julie! When you thaw the frozen cherries, it will produce enough juice from thawing for the recipe. 🙂