My other half is finally coming home after a long trip so I thought I’d welcome him with some mini apple pies.  Mini because I got a stellar Chicago pan for Christmas and it makes gifting pies so adorable.

I rolled out the dough – I used my favorite pate brisee recipe from of course Martha Stewart.  (She has made my pastry adventures so fun.)  I shouldn’t leave out my food processor here either – that ole gal makes a mean dough too. 

I used the shape cutter that comes with the Chicago mini tart pan and my Kuhn pastry cutter to cut the dough for the top in half.  I decided with this batch, I would half cover them and embellish the open side with dough cut-outs.  Also sometimes I think there is too much dough with these little pies (don’t get me wrong the dough is beyond delicious, but you can even have too much of a good thing I guess).  Notice my helper pug Leopold at the bottom of the picture waiting for pieces of granny smith’s and dough to fall off the counter. 

I used my mini Bento cutters to cut out cherry blossoms and these birds – which looked suspiciously more like Batman once I got them into the dough…. After I assembled them I popped them in the oven for about 30 minutes (until the crust is golden brown and the juices are bubbling).  The greatest thing about that Chicago mini pie pan is that it has removable bottoms so the pies/tarts always slide out with absolutely no issue.  

I’m really excited about a little purchase I made yesterday too. 

Kotobuki Geisha Doll Bento Set. Look how adorable she is! I can’t wait to start packing my lunches in here.  I guess I’m gonna get sucked into the Bento world after all.