{Easy Recipes} Mini Pumpkin Pies

Did you know that this Monday is Thanksgiving....Canadian Thanksgiving, that is!  Though I've been living in NYC for over 5 years, I try to have a little Thanksgiving over every Columbus Day weekend.  This year, I couldn't fly home to Toronto for the holidays, so my American husband will be scouring the city for a small turkey.  I decided to start the celebrations early and make mini pumpkin pies for us to enjoy.

The pies were easy to make - with the crust recipe adapted from this one and the filling recipe based on one found on AllRecipes and on creative Bakerella's.  The toughest ingredient to find was the canned pumpkin - it was sold out at Whole Foods and hidden away at Trader Joe's.  Either there are other Canadians in NYC making their own pumpkin pies, or many people are discovering making healthier cakes (by substituting oil and eggs for pumpkin.  For example, you can easily mix a chocolate cake mix with a can of pumpkin and it'll easily come out tasty)

Mini Pumpkin Pie Crust (makes 12-15 depending on how thin you roll the crust)
Ingredients
3-5 Tablespoons cold water
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Directions
1. Stir together 1 cup of flour, sugar, and salt. Add one stick of the cut butter and mix by hand.  (Mixing by hand helps ensure that the dough is not overworked)
2. Add the rest of the butter the same way. Lightly stir in the remaining flour.
3. Add water one Tablespoon at a time until the dough just sticks together.
4. Wrap in plastic wrap and stick in the fridge until you are ready to use it.

Mini Pumpkin Pie Filling (makes about 15 mini pies)
Ingredients
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
2-3 Tablespoons sweetened condensed milk (I was using up what I had on hand; if you don't have condensed milk, just add 1/4 cup more sugar. The cream cheese will already take care of the texture)
1 package cream cheese, softened at room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tsp vanilla

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Roll out dough.  Use circle cookie cutter (or ramekin in our case) to cut circles for each pie crust.
3. Press dough shapes into muffin tray.

4.  In a large glass bowl, mix cream cheese, canned pumpkin, and condensed milk.  Add eggs, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and vanilla to the bowl and thoroughly combine. 
5. Spoon mixture into each pie crust.
6. Bake for 12-15 minutes.
7. Remove pies to cool.

Once cooled, I added some festive cupcake toppers I made using Skip To My Lou's free templates, 2-Inch Scallop Circle Punch, 4 Inch Lollipop Sticks, and a mini glue gun.  They're so cute - and I can use them for Thanksgiving in November too!

My husband loved them - he already ate 2 last night (and another this morning)! Happy Thanksgiving!