Mini Shortbread Apple Pies

An Original Recipe

Mini Shortbread Apple Pie

Several months ago, I was helping little Em with her Girl Scout cookie sales. We sold all of the boxes that she was given to sell. Some of those boxes never left the house and we paid for them. I think we had a total of 4 or 5 Trefoils (which is a fancy way of saying "shortbread"). I had no idea what to do with them except for eating them like they were. One night, I had the idea of mixing some broken pieces of cookie into strawberry yogurt. It was actually pretty good, but I knew that there had to be something else to do with these leftover cookies besides mix them with yogurt and make miniature ice cream sandwiches with them (we never did the ice cream sandwiches, but that was the only recipe I could find online that used these particular cookies). 

Brian and Em LOVE Dutch apple pie. What separates Dutch apple pie from regular apple pie? The yummy crumb coating on the top, rather than pie crust. Knowing this, I set out to the local grocery store to pick up one ingredient: Apple Pie Filling. 

My genius idea was to crush a sleeve of the shortbread cookies, mix it with some melted butter and create a pie crust. Then throw in the can of apple pie filling, and top with a crumb mixture (which also happened to be the crust mixture). So, how did I get from a full sized pie to cupcake sized pies? Simple. Because we are in the middle of the move, I had the bright idea to pack up all of the pans that we don't use on a regular basis, and the pie pan was included in that. I still had the muffin tin, so I lined it with cupcake liners and called it good. 

Mini Shortbread Apple Pie

• 1 1/2 sleeves of the shortbread cookies, crushed (I found it helpful to crush them in a ziplock bag)
• 3/4 Tb butter, melted
• 1 can apple pie filling

1. Line your muffin tin with cupcake liners. 
2. Mix the melted butter and the cookies in a bowl. Spoon some of the cookie mixture into the bottom of the cupcake liners. I prefer a little thicker crusts on all of my pies, so I was using about 1/2 of a regular spoon in each pie. 
3. To get a nice even crust, I used a cupcake liner and a glass cup to press the mixture to the bottom of the pan. So, I had a cupcake liner, the cookie mixture, another cupcake liner, and a glass cup and then I gently pressed down so the crust was spread evenly. After I finished one pie, I moved on to the next and repeated the process until they were all crusts. 
4. I divided the can of apple pie filling into each of the 12 pies. They all were pretty full.
5. Bake the pies for about 8 to 10 minutes at 350. They will start to smell like a real apple pie. 
6. Take them out, and using the rest of the cookie mixture, top each pie.
7. Pop it back into the oven for about 7 minutes. 
8. Let them cool and enjoy!

It was a pretty easy recipe. I had the whole thing done in about 30 (including the baking). The family and I played a game of Uno while they were cooling, then it was time to eat them. They were so good! I think Brian had 3 that night...then he got up and had another one for breakfast the next day! I'm not much of an apple pie fan, but these were pretty good! 

I was pretty excited about this! It was my first original recipe and it worked! I have never made up a recipe until the other night. Now I have more confidence in the kitchen. Hopefully, with the move and repairs we are doing on the house, I will have more confidence doing DIY projects as well!! If you use my recipe (or make an adaptation to it), please comment and let me know how it turned out!!!