Here is a really sweet idea to serve at your next gathering. It's a tiny apple pie baked inside an apple. The idea is from Tablespoon.com and when I saw it I knew I had to make it. You can go over to their site and see how they made it. I fancied it up a little by cutting out some leaf shapes from the leftover pie crust. It's pretty easy... and fast. You don't have to peel the apples! Yay!

This year I made little apple pies in Mason jar lids, believe it or not. They came out so CUTE!!




Ingredients:

4 apples *firm apples are better so that they don't bake into much*
refrigerated crust
can of apple pie filling
caramel sauce if desired
craisins to embellish



Directions:

The first step is to cut off the top of the apple and discard it. Then, I used a potato peeler that has a sharp point and serrated edge and cut around the center of the apple to remove the core. This is the trickiest part but don't worry, it's fine if you make a hole in the bottom of the apple while you are trying to get the core out. I thought it would be much harder to get the core out and I thought I'd break the apple doing it, but NOPE. Didn't happen. I cut around the core and scooped it out. Took 1 minute, not even. I did make holes in the bottom but it didn't even matter (I thought I'd ruined them). I stuffed a few pieces  of apple in the bottom. (see picture)


Next fill the hole with a tablespoon or two of apple pie filling. I don't think this is necessary and when I make it again I'm going to stuff it with apple pieces from a separate apple... adding  a teaspoon of sugar and some cinnamon. However, for this first time I wanted to follow the recipe.


I bought a refrigerated pie crust and rolled it out a little because they are way too thick. Then I cut strips and laid them over the apple in a lattice pattern.


I had leftover pie crust so I cut some leaf shapes and impressed a knife in them to make veins. I put 3 on top of each apple. I cut extra and baked these right alongside the apples (see below).


Before baking I brushed them with an egg white wash and sprinkled with a little cinnamon sugar to make them pretty.


Baked at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes or until they start to brown.


You can see that even though I accidentally made a few holes in the bottom of the apples, it made no difference. They stayed together and didn't pour out the bottom or anything like that. It's all good, people.

I put a few craisins in the center to make them pretty and drizzled a little caramel sauce over the whole shebang.