The mini series: apple apricot crumble pie

I couldn’t help myself. If I have something in mind I have to do it. I haven’t played enough with my molds yet so it was baking time tonight. I even skipped watching my show for it. Because I didn’t want to make to much and most recipes are for “large” quantities I decided to just wing it. For 24 mini apple crumble pies I used:

- 4 big tablespoons of self rising flour

- 1,5 table spoons of sugar

- a pinch of salt

- 2 tablespoons of cold butter

- 1 package vanilla sugar

- 1 apple diced in small squares

- some sprinkles of cinnamon

- 5 dried apricots cut in squares

You can use whatever apple you like; I had half a Granny Smith and half a Jonagold. I actually prefer Jonagold apples because they hold their shape pretty well and they have a nice sweet, slightly sour bite. I started with chopping the apples and mixed them with some cinnamon. I use a scissor to cut the apricot and mixed that in as well. Normally would sprinkle a bit of lemon juice on top to prevent the apples from browning, but I didn't had any. I figured they would be covered anyway, so no one would know.

I mixed the flour with the sugar, a pinch of salt, the vanilla sugar and the cold butter. I rubbed the butter between my fingers to get the crumbs and put half of it in a different bowl so I could use this to top the pie.

To the other half I added one table spoon of water and mixed it till it looked like this.

To make sure I had enough dough I made little balls first. I tried to make them more or less the same size.

The molds were really small and there was no good way of evenly divide the dough. The only way to do it is to get one finger in there. And it helps if you have short finger nails.

I barely had enough dough for all the molds and if you want to cover the sides as well you would probably need one extra spoon of flour. This was enough for me though. 

I at first tried to fill the moulds with the apple mixture with a little spoon, but I found out that it was easier to just use my hands. And again I just had enough. A bit more would’ve gone to waste since I stuffed it pretty bad.

Now would be a good time to preheat the oven on 160C degrees.

I had enough time to put the crumbles on top and to make a big mess. There were crumbles everywhere!

After 40 minutes in the oven the apples shrunk big time. The top didn’t brown much, but I didn’t want to burn the bottom so I took them out.

They turned out good, but to make them great I think I need to add more butter to the crumbles so they will clump together more and maybe get a bit of color. And some chopped hazelnuts sounds good also.

But I got the quantity right! 4 tablespoons of flour will be enough for 24 mini pies. I need a bit more if I want to cover the sides.

I am having one, or two or more right now!