Personal Apple Pie

This week my husband lamented to me about how it seems I bake for everybody but him. At first I was a little irritated by this. I mean, its not my fault the guy doesn't like chocolate or really care for cookies or cupcakes. He's not even all that into bread!

But then I thought, hold on a minute... shouldn't  I use my baking powers not only for good, but for awesome? And how awesome would it be if I could figure out a way to bake for my beloved on a scale small enough so as to not have massive amounts of sweets tempting me for days on end (my hubby likes to take his time with desserts... a power I wish I had)?

And so I set out to create a mini fruit pie. I basically modified two recipes; one for savory pasties and one for apple dumplings. This recipe makes two individual apple pies. I haven't tried it yet myself, but I'm willing to bet that you can use pretty much any kind of pie filling you like, as well as your own crust recipe if you have a favorite. You will need a jumbo muffin tin for these.

Personal Apple Pie
 For Crust:

• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup shortening
• 2 Tbs cold water

For Filling:

• 1 large granny smith apple, peeled, cored and diced
• 1 Tbp all purpose flour
• 1Tbp white sugar
• 1 Tbp brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg

To make the crust mix the salt in with the flour. Cut the shortening into the flour using a fork until it resembles course crumbs.  Add the water and mix until the dough pulls together. Form it into a ball, wrap it up in plastic wrap and set it in the fridge to chill.

To make the fill combine the apples with the flour, sugars and spices until well mixed.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.

Take the dough and divide it into half. Divide each half into two chunks, one larger than the other. Take the larger piece of dough and either roll it out or just squish it between your hands like I did until it big enough to cover the bottom and sides of the jumbo muffin tin cup.

Mold the piece into the cups, then fill with the apple mixture, dividing it evenly between the two. Now take the remaining dough pieces and roll or squish them out, cover the tops of the two pies with them and pinch the sides to seal up the pie. Take a sharp knife and cut slits into the tops of the pies. If you wish you can dab on some egg white to the tops of the pies.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the filling is bubbly and the tops are golden brown. Let cool completely before attempting to remove from the muffin tins.