Mini Pumpkin Pie

You've heard of Bakerella, right? No?! Well, let me introduce you! I first discovered Bakerella about 2 1/2 years ago and was overwhelmed with the cuteness abounding in this blog! Around last Halloween, I was throwing a party for some friends when I saw these Mini Pumpkin Pies and I KNEW I had to make them! I love anything mini, and the little jack-o-lantern faces just about tossed me over the edge of "eeee!!!! Sooooooooo cute!!!!" When I first made these last year, I used homemade pie crust, but went with a refrigerated pie crust this time to make things easy for ya.

Mini Pumpkin Pies
Recipe from Bakerella
Ingredients:
2 Pie Crusts
8 oz, or one box, of room temperature Cream Cheese
3 Eggs
1/2 Cup Sugar (Next time I am going to try these with honey instead, be on the lookout!)
1 Cup canned Pumpkin
1 tsp Vanilla
1 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice (You can also use 1/2 tsp Cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground Ginger, 1/8 tsp ground Allspice and 1/8 tsp ground Nutmeg)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Roll out your pie crusts to maximize mini pumpkin pie cutouts. Like my rolling pin? Yeah, I should probably get a real one someday. I'm waiting for the hubs to find me a great pink one for some kind of mother's day/birthday/valentine's day/Christmas gift kind of thing.

Using a round cookie cutter, or a pumpkin cookie cutter, or the top of a glass because you don't actually own any cookie cutters besides Christmas ones. . . . . cut out a bunch of circles. I would say these were 3 1/2-4 inches wide maybe?

I got about 14 circles out of one crust. Pick up the scraps, re-roll, and you can get about another 3 or 4 circles.

Start filling up your mini muffin tin. You can try harder to make them prettier around the edges. I was in a rush.

Grab some of the extra scraps and make little "stems." Make sure to really press them on there, because they have a tendency to fall off once cooked.

Now it's time to make the filling! Grab a mixing bowl and dump in your cream cheese.

(Where did all of my other pictures go?!?!) Add sugar, 2 of the 3 eggs, vanilla, pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice.

Mix it all up! Cream cheese can be hard to really mix with other things, so I grabbed my immersion blender and pureed that stuff right up!

Now, for that last egg, we're just going to use the white. Brush the egg whites around the edges of the pie crusts. I totally forgot to do this with my second batch! It just doesn't come out as golden and beautiful without the egg whites.

Fill those suckers up! About 1 Tablespoon of filling for each little pie. Don't forget to wipe up any little spills.

Yay! Ready to go! They go into the oven for about 15 minutes, according to Bakerella, but mine took about 20 minutes. Just check for golden brown-ness.

Yes, I know, Bakerella's are much prettier than mine.

Take them out and let them cool completely if you are going to be decorating them. Speaking of which. . .

Grab some chocolate chips and melt em! You can do it double-boiler style or pop in the microwave and stir after every 30 seconds.

If you want, you can add a dash of vegetable oil to thin it out a bit.

Pour your chocolate into a plastic baggie, chop a teeny tiny little bit off of the corner, and then pipe on some cute faces! The stem fell off of a few of mine, so I just drizzled the chocolate over the top. Still yum!

Happy Halloween!