Easy Individual Apple Pie Recipe (makes 12)

Since we love a little something sweet now and then, but don't always have time to bake a whole pie, I love finding special recipes just like this one to get a delicious treat in almost no time. This quick and easy individual pie recipe is something that we change a little bit every time, and can be customized to your liking -- it's as easy as pie!

Ingredients:

• 1 sleeve of Phyllo dough, defrosted
• 1 24oz can/jar of chunky apple sauce
• 3 tbsp of dried fruit (we used a mix of currants and apricots)
• 3 tbsp of mixed nuts (we skipped this ingredient this time because we were out, but it really improves it)
• 1/2 tsp of "cake spice" from Penzey's. Probably any mixed spice would work, even pumpkin spice...
• 2 tbsp of demerera or other coarse sugar (maple sugar would be great if you have that)
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar to garnish

Equipment

• cupcake/muffin tin
• 350F (180C) oven
• knife or scissors
• spoon
• bowl
• timer set for 16-20 minutes

Preheat the oven to 350F (180C).

Chop the dried fruit so that all of the pieces are about the size of raisins.

Chop the mixed nuts so there aren't any large pieces.

Mix the dried fruit, the chopped mixed nuts, the applesauce, and the cake spice in a bowl. We have 4 bowls, because we wanted to try all of the variations of ingredients and it's a lazy Sunday with snow on the ground.

Spray the muffin tin.

Unroll the packaged phyllo dough and cut it into smaller sheets. A little larger than the sheets we used would probably be better, about 3.5" - 4" (8-10cm) you don't actually use anywhere near the entire package for a single batch of this.

1. Peel away a single sheet of dough, lay it over one of the muffin tin openings, spray with cooking spray.
2. Peel away a single sheet of dough, lay it over the sheet from the previous step, rotated slightly, spray with cooking spray.
3. Peel away a single sheet of dough, lay it over the sheet from the previous two steps, rotated slightly, spray with cooking spray.
4. Press the three sheets of dough down into the the tin, forming a little cup with the points sticking out over the top.

Repeat until all of the tins are filled with cups like this.

Using the spoon, fill the pastry crust cups approximately evenly. It's easiest to put 1 heaped tbsp in each cup, and then use the remaining filling to top them all up.

Take one more sheet of the phyllo dough and place it over each of your tiny pies. Spray with cooking spray. Pinch and fold the edges over the top to form a rough crumple.

Sprinkle a pinch of the demerara sugar over each little pie, then place in the preheated oven for 16-20 minutes. These photos probably look a little bit out of order, because we forgot to add the sugar before baking, but remembered part way through and it turned out just fine.

The filling is pre-cooked, so the only indicator of doneness is that the pastry looks browned enough. This batch took about 18 minutes, sometimes it's a little more or less. Serve on individual plates, dusted with powdered sugar.

Enjoy!

While we did this with applesauce, truly you could make anything into a pie. Leftovers from the Indian place? Curry pie! Need a quick breakfast for the whole family? Mini quiche pies! Thanksgiving dinner is about to start and you forgot to bake the pie? Spoon the canned pumpkin mix right in here and be done in a fraction of the time!