Cute food tastes better than regular food, if you ask me.  If you don’t have that much in your cupboard and need a fun dessert, these are simple, but take some time to make the crust. 

The recipe for a 2-crust pie (top and bottom), which translates into about 12 little crusts for cupcake tins, is as follows:

A)    2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, sifted.  B) 2/3 cup shortening, forked in until there are pea-sized flour balls

C)  Gradually fork/fold in up to 7 Tablespoons water, until the dough is nice and held together

D) roll out and use a large-rimmed glass to cut out  crusts to put into a greased and floured cupcake tins.

Once you’ve pressed the little crusts into the tins so that they come up to the height of the pan, Open up your can of fruit–either cherry pie filling, which is cheating, or fruit in heavy syrup—I like using canned peaches.  One 29 oz can will fill 12 tarts or more.  Add 1/4 cup flour to thicken, and stir in some sugar, depending on how you like your pie to taste…they really don’t need much sugar, but if you have a sweet tooth, start with 1/4 cup.  Ladel it into the pie nests, making sure to wipe up drips as you go as those will burn and take forever to clean off your tin.

Sprinkle with some topping–I just crunched like 1/3 cup frosted flakes, wheat germ, and 1/4 cup sugar together on top. 

Bake for 15+ minues at 375 degrees let cool a bit, run a knife around the edges to loosen the pies, and then lift them out when fully cooled.  Or eat them hot (if you can get them out) with ICECREAM! *drool*