Thanksgiving and Christmas are quickly approaching. If you are looking for a dish that is easy to make and tastes great too, try making our mini pumpkin pies with caramel, maple pecan topping. This holiday favorite contains a few basic baking ingredients, and prep/cook time is about an hour. Plus, you can pick up all the tools and ingredients at your local Rural King or on Ruralking.com! Instead of forcing party guests to cut (always unevenly) into an entire pie, give them an individual dessert that will have them coming back for seconds!
What you Need
Medium and Small Bowl
Measuring Cups and Measuring Spoons
Ingredients
Makes 15-20 mini pies
NOTE: You will have extra filling. If you want to make 30-40 mini pies, double up the pie dough recipe only.
Pie Dough
- 2 ½ cups of all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 sticks of chilled unsalted butter cut into pieces
- NOTE: We had extra pie filling when making this recipe. Double these ingredients to make extra dough to match.
Pumpkin Filling
- ¾ cups of granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- 12 oz evaporated milk
- 15 oz pure pumpkin filling
- 2 farm fresh eggs
Caramel, Maple Pecan Topping: Optional
- 1 cup Pecans
- 1 tbsp Maple Syrup
- Caramel
Directions: Making Mini Pumpkin Pies
Making the Pie Crust
Preheat your oven to 425ºF (some ovens preheat faster than others. This step doesn’t have to be first if your oven preheats quickly enough.)
Add flour, sugar, and salt into a medium bowl. Take your two sticks of butter and soften them slightly, in a microwave (a few seconds). Once the butter is soft, chop each stick into 1/2″ chunks and toss them in the same medium bowl you used before.
Mix everything together with a blender or simply use your hands to mix in all of the ingredients. Be sure there are no small chunks of butter!
Once everything has been thoroughly mixed together, your mixture should still look crumbly. To fix this, get a bowl of ice water and add 1 tbsp at a time (mixing after each tbsp) until your mixture is more of a doughy consistency. This should take about 2-4 tbsp of ice water.
Roll your ball of dough out flat until it’s about 1″ thick. Then, cut the pie dough into 4-5″ circles.
Take each circle and place one in each cupcake round. Be very careful not to tear your dough, but if it does tear, press the dough back together with your fingers. You can also work/pinch the edges of the dough for a fancy touch!
Place your muffin pan full of dough in the oven for about 15 minutes. While this is baking, begin making the filling for your mini pumpkin pies.
Pumpkin Pie Filling
Mix sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, pumpkin, and evaporated milk into a medium bowl. Using a rubber spatula or whisk, mix the ingredients together until completely blended. Then, mix in your two eggs with the whisk.
Once your pie crusts are out of the oven, pour the pie filling into each cup. Make sure each pie has an equal amount of filling. (filling should fill up to just before the rim of your pie crust cup.
Reduce the oven temperature to 350ºF and bake the mini pumpkin pies for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.
Let your pumpkin pies rest on a cooling rack for an hour or two. This isn’t critical but it helps the filling set up and makes your dessert less of a mess. While you wait, you can choose to make a topping for your pies!
Caramel, Mapel Pecan Topping
We decided to go with the Fall favorite, pecans, as our topping, but these mini pumpkin pies can also be left plain or topped with whip cream. YUM!
Mix pecans and maple syrup together in a small bowl and set aside.
If you are using hard caramel, warm it up in the microwave at 20-second intervals, stirring in between, until the caramel is easy to drizzle.
Set your pumpkin pies in a baking or serving dish so they are all in a group. This will make it easier to drizzle the caramel. Then, using a spoon, add an individual amount of maple pecan topping to each pie. Once each pie has a bit of pecan on top, drizzle your caramel over the group of pies.
And, voila! You’ve just baked a simple but delicious dessert your whole family will enjoy!
Thankful for Our Readers
We would like to take this time to tell all of our readers that we appreciate you learning and creating with us throughout the year. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family and travel safe!
If you would like to read more of our delicious recipes, visit our recipe category. Let us know of any recipes or crafts you would like for us to try in the comments section below!