Book Review- Mini Pies

Mini Pies: Adorably Delicious Recipes for Your Favorite Treats by Christy Beaver and Morgan Greenseth is a collection of recipes and instructions for miniature pies.

The authors run Mini Empire Bakery in Seattle, a bakery that specializes in tiny treats, with options for restricted diets.

When my husband saw this book, he said "It's a cute little pie book about cute little pies. You love it don't you?" It is a little book! It's 6x6 inches square, with 128 pages and 29 pie fillings and 7 pie crust recipes. It's simply adorable, and this is the kind of book that would have thrilled me in my stocking when I was younger.

The pies are made in muffin tins and topped with traditional toppings like whipped cream, meringue and a vegan whipped topping recipes, or with little cutouts made from crust. Along with traditional crust recipes, there is also a vegan pie crust and a gluten free crust. The instructions for making the crusts, rolling them out and putting them in the muffin tins are clearly written and easy to follow if you're a first time pie baker. There are also instructions for jar pies which use little mason canning jars as both the pie pan and the serving dish.

Each of the fillings and crust recipes are enough for 12 pies.  Fantastic mix of pie recipes. While they could have just done traditional pies and filled the cookbook, they didn't. A lot of the recipes have foodie touches and twists to make them a bit fancier. The fillings are made from scratch. No jarred pie fillings here! So there are some very traditional pies like key lime, pumpkin and chocolate cream, there is also an Apple Chai pie which adds more seasoning and flavor than just the cinnamon that's usually used. Instead of strawberry-rhubarb, there is a recipe for raspberry-rhubarb whiskey pie. Since I have raspberries and rhubarb in my garden, that will be popular this summer.

There are also a few savory options like a quiche and an onion pie. The onion pie I could easily see becoming a favorite of my son.

Some of the recipes have sweet tips on the side bars. For example with the above mentioned raspberry rhubarb pie, it suggests using liquid you pull off the filling to make a sorbet.

If you're a fan of baking  and love cute, you'll probably appreciate this cookbook. Great combinations of flavors and just wonderful presentation. The photos are gorgeous. I really love the ones they cut a slice out of these tiny pies.

Published by Ulysses Press.


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