Cranana Mini Pies :: Recipe

I have a great little treat for you. Cranana Mini Pies can be eating for breakfast, as a snack, or dessert. And best of all, it uses up those last few over ripe bananas that I forgot I had bought. Not enough for a full out loaf of banana bread, but more than enough to make a great batch of banana filled mini pies! Okay, the name might be a little lame, but I thought “Cranberry Almond Banana Mini Pies” was a little long and, well, I like the name Cranana.

This recipe actually has hardly any sugar in it (just a dusting of confectioner’s sugar after baking) and are still pretty sweet because of the overripe bananas in the filling – which tend to get sweeter as they ripen up.

Cranana Mini Pies

Crust:
3 1/2 cups flour
8 Tablespoons butter (sweetened or unsweetened, it’s up to you
3/4 cups water
1 egg – separated
confectioner’s sugar

Filling:
1/4 cup whole almonds – blended on “chop” (literally in the blender until it’s all minced up)
1/4 cup dried cranberries – blended on “chop”
2 ripe bananas – mashed with a fork
juice of 1 necterine, half an orange, or 1 T. orange juice
pinch of nutmeg
few drops of almond extract (optional)

Directions:
1. Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl. Work softened butter in with your hands until the mixture is crumbly.

2. Add 1 T. of water at a time and mix in with your hands until the dough is soft and can form into a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

3. Make the filling while the dough is chilling. Add all ingredients for the filling together in a medium sized bowl and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon. Set aside until dough is ready.

4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

5. Roll out the dough so it is about 1/8″-1/4″ thick. Cut as any circles as you can, form scrap dough into a ball, roll out again and cut more. Keep rolling out the scrap dough until you have made as many circles as possible (about 12-14).

Note: I used a soup mug to mark out my circles and cut them with a knife. If you have a pastry cutter that is say 4″, just use that and add a little less filling to each mini pie.

6. Hold a circle in your hand and spoon 1T of filling into the center. Put a little egg white around the circumference of the circle. Fold in half and pinch shut with your fingers. Seal it up by pressing a fork around the edge on both sides. Repeat for all your mini pies.


7. Line all your mini pies up on a non stick cookie sheet(s) and brush with the beaten egg yoke.

8. Pop into the oven and bake for 15 minutes, flip over all the mini pies, rotate the pan(s) and bake for another 8-10 minutes.

9. Remove from oven and place on cooling rack. Dust with confectioner’s sugar before serving or storing.

We are eating these up pretty quickly so I just refrigerated them. I would imagine you could easily wrap each one up in plastic wrap and wax paper and freeze them for at least a few months.

Oh and this recipe was inspired by a recipe for banana mini pies in Greatest Baking Ever by Barns and Noble books. It was like I looked at the recipe and said “that sounds good” and then realized the only ingredients I had that it called for were bananas and flour. I didn’t even have shortening. Well, poo to that. So I made up my own recipe. I think next time I would go with my favorite pastry recipe instead of their’s. It’s good, but not “my favorite” – also a really good apple tart recipe!

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If we are running low on bread by Wednesday, I’ll make some bread and post about it. If not I have another post ready to go that I’m sure you will like just as well. I might also post before then about my favorite easy/quick/cheap/nutritious snack, but we will see how the week goes.

Best wishes and happy cooking!
Kristin