The Sweet Store-Bought Shortcut To Making Bite-Size Cherry Pies

Have you ever wanted to delight in the sweet, decadent goodness of a cherry pie but lacked the justification to bake a whole one for yourself? We're here to enlighten you about how you can achieve a condensed version of the same yummy dessert, with a fraction of the fuss. All it takes is a pack of pre-made crescent rolls and a few ingredients from the grocery store to achieve bite-size cherry pies that you'll have a hard time saving for later.

Most of the components you'll need for this recipe are common across American households and grocery stores, so you won't have to endure an extensive scavenger hunt to get started. Taking a look through your bakeware, you probably have a muffin tin and some butter in your midst. If you're like other home bakers, one could guess that you've already got essentials like milk on hand. And you'll be happy to know that powdered sugar is very easy to make at home if you've run out of it. As for other ingredients, the only ones you may have to run out and grab are crescent roll dough and cherry pie filling.

You'll want to ensure that the mini pies are properly baked all the way, though. The dough should be firm but not hardened, and the top layer should be near brown (but not burnt). In order to make sure your mini pies release from the baking tin as expected, make sure you properly grease the pan ahead of filling the circular crevices. It only takes about 15 minutes in the oven to get to the texture and color you're after. Once removed, you'll mix the glaze and drizzle it overtop.

There are many ways to alter this sweet shortcut to meet your preferences, and we've got an easy fix for syrupy store-bought cherry pie filling if you don't have time to make it from scratch. As for the amount of filling to include, this is somewhat up to your discretion. This recipe is relatively forgiving; therefore, you can play with proportions, as part of the excitement is its homemade appearance. 

As it turns out, making homemade cherry pie filling is a relatively simple task, not to mention your shopping list won't get much bigger with this added step. You'll find this recipe is merely comprised of standard home kitchen ingredients, save for several more cartons of cherries than usual. All it takes is sugar, fresh cherries, lemon, vanilla (plus a few other kitchen basics), and about 10 minutes on the stovetop.

If you're looking to change it up a bit, you can keep the same store-bought crescent dough and easily swap out cherry filling for a plethora of other options. Thus making this recipe very open-ended. For example, instead of cherry filling, why not try blueberry, or something a little brighter like lemon curd? You could even go a savory route for those who don't happen to have the biggest sweet tooth; think Gouda and caramelized onion or dark chocolate and brie. These snack pastries are great straight out of the oven or popped into the air fryer and reheated the next day.