When asked what his favorite kind of pie is, my son always answered, “Meat!” and then gets those raised eyebrow, are-you-kidding-me looks from Americans not familiar with Great British cooking 🙂 Meat pies are one of the delicious cornerstones of British cookery. That being said, this is a very American recipe from Epicurious.com, but it stays true to the spirit of a great British meat pie. This meat pie uses boxed pastry crusts—although you could make your own—ground turkey, grated apple, grated onion, and sage.

The pies can be eaten hot, warm or cold. Whole trays of unbaked pies can be frozen to be baked later. Baked pies can be frozen to be reheated in the oven, toaster oven or microwave . Cupcake Tin Turkey Pies can be a snack, breakfast, lunch or dinner! They are great for game day parties, buffets, and picnics—they are tasty all the time! My grandson giggled his way through his first Cupcake Tin Turkey Pie, which meant he liked it a lot!

At this moment, I have two dozen Cupcake Tin Turkey Pies in the freezer 🙂

Try these! They are so much better in taste, nutrition, lack of preservatives, and cost-per-serving than Hot Pockets and other similar pre-packaged food. Don’t eat those nasty things! Try these instead!

I have made a lamb version of these pies, but I didn’t like them nearly as much.  If you want to try Cupcake Tin Lamb Pies, these are the changes I made, maybe you can do better. I added ½ cup chopped fresh mint, 1 teaspoon allspice and ¼ teaspoon cinnamon.

Interestingly, I have never tried a ground beef based cupcake tin pie; I think it’s a possibility though. Maybe with a bit of ketchup, BBQ sauce, steak sauce or even Worcestershire sauce…cupcake tin bacon onion burger pies?? .

Cupcake Tin Turkey Pies

INGREDIENTS

• ¾ pound ground turkey
• 1 medium (or ½ large) onion, peeled and grated
• ¼ cup applesauce or ½ grated, peeled apple
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage OR ½ tsp dried
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley OR 1 tsp dried OR omit
• ½ cup bread crumbs
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 boxes pre-rolled, refrigerated pie dough (such as Pillsbury) or a double batch of your own pie crust

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375°.
2. In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients but the dough and 1 tablespoon of the eggs; refrigerate mixture while you prepare the pastry.
3. Unroll the dough and cut out eighteen 4″ circles with a biscuit cutter or the rim of a drinking glass.
4. Line the bottoms and sides of the tins with the 4″ rounds.
5. Cut out eighteen 2″ rounds from the rest of the dough. (Depending on how closely you space the circles you might have one pastry sheet left over. Does that encourage you to make a dessert pie?)
6. Remove the bowl of filling from the refrigerator and divide evenly among the pastry-lined muffin cups.
7. Press the 2″ rounds on top, pinching the edges together to seal.
8. Using a fork, poke holes in the top crust of the pies. Don’t just prick, poke! Your fork should go almost half-way down the center of each the pie.
9. Brush tops with the reserved egg.
10. Bake until the tops are browned and puffed slightly, 30 to 35 minutes.
11. Loosen pies with thin metal spatula, Then place the mini pies into paper or foil cupcake/muffin liners. Be careful with this step. Gently pry the pies from the tins.
12. Let cool for 15 minutes before serving.
13. Eat with your hands! Generally served warm, though my kids eat them hot, cold, warm and at room temperature 🙂

These little pies can be frozen before baking. When ready to bake, just follow directions above but bake for 40-45 minutes instead. Makes 18 cupcake sized meat pies. You could also make mini-muffin sized pies for an appetizer buffet—but IMHO the mini pies have too much crust, and not enough filing, for my taste.

If these become a frequent item in your home, you might want to dedicate one cupcake pan to them, because a few batches do mess up the pans. I have two older pans for meat pies, and three pans for cupcakes. The pans stack and store easily, and you can usually buy cupcake pans for a reasonable price at TJMaxx.

Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today, see you again, soon!