Open Wound and Eye Mini Pies

I had some extra stuff left from making the Zombie Cherry Pies so I decided to play some more. These are little mini personal cherry pies made to look like creepy gross open wounds and eyes. Happy Halloween and enjoy!

These are just some of the key items I used in making these creepy mini pies, but obviously if you find something in your kitchen that works better than what I had, use that too!

For the Pie Crust

• 2.5 Pounds of All Purpose Flour
• 4 Ounces of Granulated Sugar
• 1 Teaspoon Salt
• 1 Pound of Unsalted Butter, Room Temp
• 1 Egg
• 1 Tablespoon Vinegar
• 2 Cups of Ice Cold Water

For the Cherry Filling

• 3# Frozen Pitted Cherries
• 1/2 Cup Granulated Sugar
• 1/2 Cup All Purpose Flour
• 1 Teaspoon Vanilla
• 1 Teaspoon Salt
• 1 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon

**Author Note: I used flour to thicken this filling instead of a corn starch you typically see because I wanted a more goopy cloudy look to the filling so it mimicked coagulated blood. Using corn starch would give the filling a more clean, glossy see through look if that is what you prefer to use!

Equipment

• Large Bowl
• Small Bowl
• Whisk
• Spatula
• Large Sauce pot
• Measuring Spoons
• Liquid Measuring Cup
• Scale
• Rolling Pin
• Fork
• Paring Knife
• Ring Cutters
• Mini Pie Dishes, Mini Cast Iron Pans, Mason Jar Lids, etc. (This recipe made about 20 mini cast iron pies for me.)

• In the large bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients from your pie crust list. Whisk them together until combined.
• After all your dry is mixed together well, add your room temp butter. Squeeze the butter together into the dry mix creating smaller and smaller pieces of butter.
• Continue using your hands to squeeze and rub together the butter and dry ingredients until you have pea sized chunks of butter/dry mix.
• Then create a well in the middle of the mix. In a smaller bowl, combine all of the wet ingredients from your pie crust list and whisk them together until completely combined.
• Pour the wet ingredients into the well you created in the dry mix. Then gently toss together the dough until it becomes flaky and combined.
• A little bit of dry is not a bad thing. You don't want to over mix your dough and cause it to become too tough. The dough will combine further when you roll it out. The less you mix the dough the more tender it will be.
• Cover and refrigerate until it is time to roll out the dough.

• Combine all the ingredients for the Cherry Filling into a large sauce pot and place on the stove top on medium heat.
• You want to continuously stir and cook this filling low and slow to prevent scorching on the bottom of the pan.
• Cook until the mixture becomes thick and bubbly and the dry ingredients have fully dissolved to make a smooth filling.
• This took about 15 minutes on my stove top but that may depend on your own equipment so use the photos provided for reference!
• Cover and chill until you need the filling.

• Measure out about 1/2 pound of pie dough to start with, you don't want to roll out too much dough at once.
• Roll it out to your desired thickness. I like mine on the thin side so I went with a quarter inch thickness.
• Use a circle cutter that fits your mini pie pan that you chose to use and cut out circles of dough placing them in your pie pans.
• Press the dough into the pans firmly, with no air bubbles or creases showing. Then use a fork to poke holes into the bottom of your pie shell to prevent bubbling of your crust.
• Next, spoon your cherry filling into the shells. Put aside a very small amount, about 1/4 cup tops, of filling juice for the very end. You'll use it as glaze on some of the details after the pie has finished baking!

• Measure out another 1/2 pound of pie dough to roll out the same way you did in the previous step and use your circle cutter to cut out matching circles for your top crusts.
• Place them on top of your mini pies and gently press them down.
• Use your finger or a fork to pinch the crusts together along the edges to better seal them.

Take your paring knife and play around cutting your wound into the top of your mini pie, then gently pull back the edges of the wound to give it a more dramatic look.

• For the open eye mini pies, start by using your thumb to put a dimple into the center of the pie where you want your eye to be.
• Then roll out a small ball of dough and place it in the dimple.
• Next roll out some extra dough, and use your circle cutter to cut out a circle.
• Then use your paring knife to cut that circle in half, placing one half of the circle above your ball of dough and below your ball of dough, leaving an opening for the eye to peak out of.

After all your mini pies are made, using one egg and half a cup of water whisked together for egg wash, brush your pies thoroughly with the wash.
Lightly sprinkle a layer of granulated sugar over the top to give your finished pie a nice golden crispy finish when baking. Then place pie in the oven at 350F for 20 minutes.

***This time will definitely change depending on the mini pie pans you have. I would start your timer at 15 minutes and just check in on them regularly until they are golden, crispy, and bubbly!

Once your little pies are fully baked you can use the extra cherry juice we set aside to brush on more gore and detail and then they are ready to serve! Hope you all enjoy and have fun trying these out and experimenting with other body parts!