Directions

• Over medium heat, melt butter in a large skillet. Once butter is melted, add apples and salt. Cook for about five minutes, stirring frequently, so that apples release some of their moisture.
• Add both sugars, cinnamon, ginger, clove, allspice, and nutmeg to apples. Cook, stirring frequently, for another 5 minutes.
• Using a tea strainer, sift cornstarch over apple mixture. If you don’t have a tea strainer, make a slurry by combining cornstarch with 1-2 tbsp of water in a small bowl, then pour into apple mixture.
• Raise temperature to medium high and cook, stirring frequently, until the liquid in the pan begins to bubble. Cook for another minute, then remove from heat. Cool mixture until you can comfortably touch it with your fingers.
• On a lightly floured surface, using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out one of the pieces of dough just slightly to extend the original circumference of the dough by about one inch.
• Pour a little flour into a plate and lightly flour the sharp edge of your cookie cutter/sandwich press cutter. Then use cutter to cut heart shaped pieces of dough (you should be able to cut 6, depending on the size of your cutter). Remove the outer border dough, roll into a ball, and set aside as we will be reusing it shortly. To make your pies look like mine in the photo, use a tiny heart cutter or alphabet cutter to cut out hearts/letters in the middle of three of the large dough hearts. These will be your top pieces. The remaining three pieces will be your bottom pieces. If you don’t plan on using a tiny cutter, take a paring knife and make three 1/4 inch slits in each of your top pieces.
• Working with one piece of bottom dough at a time, using a fork and your fingers, place the apple filling evenly within the borders of the heart. The apple pieces should stack neatly on top of each other (as pictured in video below).
• Once all three bottom pieces have apple filling, moisten the outer edge of the heart with a little water then place the top dough pieces on top. If you are using the sandwich press/cutter, place the large outer heart cutter around the mini pie to secure it, then place the grooved piece inside. (See video below for guidance.) Press gently, then remove pie and place on a parchment paper covered sheet pan. If you are not using a sandwich press/cutter, seal the edges by pressing with the tines of a fork.
• Roll out the second piece of pie crust dough and repeat steps 5-8.
• Combine the dough scraps and press into a ball. Adding more flour to work surface if necessary, roll out the dough into an oval, the same thinness as the 2 original dough disks. Repeat steps 6-8 (although you likely will only have enough dough for 2 more pies).
• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Using a pastry brush, brush the surface of each pie with a thin layer of egg. Immediately sprinkle coarse sugar over each pie.
• Bake pies on the middle rack of oven until golden brown, about 20 minutes.
• While pies bake, make glaze (directions below).
• Allow pies to cool, then using a spoon, drizzle glaze over pies. Serve immediately.
• Glaze instructions
• In a medium bowl, stir together powdered sugar, 3 tsp milk, and vanilla extract. If necessary, add extra tsp milk to make glaze drizzling consistency.