One of the many benefits of homeschooling is that I get to teach, or rather, grade, Home Ec. Lauren is doing basic cooking and baking this semester, and we’ve all enjoyed tasting her efforts. Several months ago, I found this recipe in the coupon section of the Sunday paper. It sounded good so I bought a mini muffin pan just to make these. And then I never made them. When Lauren started Home Ec., I remembered this recipe and thought she should give it a try. As you can see in the photo, we also experimented with blueberry filling, but we preferred the cherry more than the blueberry.

Ingredients:

Crust:
1 cup butter, softened
1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup finely chopped pecans

Filling:
1 (21 oz.) can cherry pie filling

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine crust ingredients in a large bowl. Beat at medium-high speed until mixture is creamy (1-2 minutes). Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour.

Form dough into 1 inch balls and place in mini muffin tins. Using your finger dusted in flour, press dough into bottom and sides of tins. Fill each mini pie with about 1 tablespoon of pie filling. Bake uncovered for 18-20 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool completely before serving. If desired, top each mini pie with a pecan half for garnish just before serving.

I must warn you, they are small so there is a huge desire to eat several at one sitting! 🙂

Enjoy!