Mini Pie Crust Shells

These Mini Pie Crust Shells make the perfect bite sized mini pies. Fill them with savory fillings, and they’ll be the hit for your next cocktail party. Fill the shells with sweet fillings, and you have mini dessert cups.

Making your own can be fussy, and you might be tempted just to buy pre-made pie shells. But I promise that it’s possible to make homemade mini pie shells that will be less expensive and taste better than anything you can buy in a store.

Backstory

Many years ago, before the mister and the kiddo were around, I’d throw myself big birthday parties. Lots of people, four or five birthday cakes, and tons of finger food.

I remember making gougeres. And olive poppers wrapped in cheddar cheese pie crust. And these mini pie shells filled with mushrooms.

Ingredients

Cream cheese makes pie crust easier to work with than an all-butter pie crust. You can use the below table to adjust the amount of ingredients, whether you want to make mini pie shells or a double crust pie with a lattice top.

Variations and substitutions

• Use 100% all-purpose flour instead of a 50% all purpose-cake flour mix. Your crust will be slightly less tender.
• Reduce or omit the sugar for savory pies.
• Use ice water or vodka in place of the heavy cream.
• Check out the table above for how to scale up this recipe for other pie crusts. If you’re dividing that double or lattice pie crust into top and bottom, I aim to roll out about 360 grams of this pie dough for my bottom crust. But I do tend to make more pie dough than I need so I can freeze the remainder for pot pies or make pie crust cookies.

How to prevent pie crust from shrinking

One of the challenges of making mini pie shells is shrinking pie crust. Pie crust shrinks when the gluten is over-worked or when the dough is warm when you start to bake it.

Even if you do all the right things, baking pie crusts in a mini-muffin pan can be particularly frustrating because shrinking pie crust means there’s no room for filling (below photo, right). Some recipes call for baking the pie shells on the backside of the muffin tin to take advantage of gravity. But those still end up misshapen and now not so miniature (below, left).

Recipe tips and tricks

Making the pie dough

This mini pie crust recipe is slightly adapted from the flaky cream cheese pie crust from The Pie and Pastry Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. I find the food processor to be the easiest way to make pie crust, but you can also use a stand mixer or mix by hand.

Step 1: Combine the flours, sugar, salt, and baking powder (Panel #1, below).

Step 2: Then add the cream cheese and pulse 10 times (Panel #2).

Step 3: Add the butter cubes and pulse another 10 times (Panel #3, above).

Step 4: Then add the cream and cider vinegar and pulse only until the pie dough starts to come together (Panel #4).

Step 5: Turn it out onto your clean countertop or into a large bowl and press it together gently with your hands until there are no more dry crumbs.

Step 6: Divide the pie dough if you need to. You will need about 300 grams of dough to make 24 mini pie shells.

Step 7: Shape your pie dough into a ball (or balls if you have made extra) and then press down to make a disc. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest in the refrigerator for at least one hour.

Making the pie shells

Step 8: To make the shells, roll out your pie dough on a lightly floured surface to an eighth of an inch. Use a 2.5 inch cookie cutter to cut out rounds.

Step 9: Center the round on your mini muffin cup and use your thumb and forefinger of both hands to ease the round evenly into the cup until it reaches the bottom. Try not to stretch the dough as you ease it down. It should fill the cup without pushing.

Step 10: Re-roll the scraps and cut out more 2.5 inch circles until you have 24 mini shells. If your dough starts to warm and get soft, roll it up in plastic wrap and let it chill again for 15 minutes.

Step 11: Once you have your shells, place another mini-muffin tin on top (photos below). Gently press down so that the bottom of the second tin is firmly in place. This second tin is going to prevent the dough from sliding down the muffin cup as it blind bakes.

Step 13: To blind bake the shells, bake the pans in a 375 degree oven for 14 minutes. Then remove the top pan and finish baking for 2 to 3 minutes until the shells are golden and fully baked on the bottom.

What to serve in mini pie crust shells

There are an infinite number of ways to use your mini pie shells. Here are a few suggestions:

• Sweet fillings: make mini blueberry pies or use any other jam or pie filling topped with whipped cream, mini curd tarts like this citrus curd or blackberry curd topped with rainbow fruit, Biscoff pudding, Nutella ganache, etc.
• For savory mini pies, use eggs or a leek and squash quiche filling, mashed purple sweet potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, or tomatoes and fresh herbs.

Recipe FAQs

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