PECAN PIE MINI BITES

Steps:

• 1. First, the crusts. Start by sifting together the flour and salt.
• 2. Next, cut in the shortening.
• 3. Now stir in your chopped pecans. Make sure these are nice and fine, but not powder or butter. If the pecan pieces are too big, the dough gets hard to work with and roll out. But if they're too fine, well, then you lose them...
• 4. Water gets added 2 or 3 teaspoons at a time. When I make this, one of the first things I do is take a measuring cup, fill it with water and place it into the fridge. Then as I need it, I pull it out, put a couple of teaspoons into my dough, and place it back into the fridge. As you add the water, use a fork to toss the dough.
• 5. It will take a few applications of the water, but it will eventually form a ball.
• 6. Lightly flour your counter or rolling surface.
• 7. Use your hand to slightly flatten the dough ball, then start rolling.
• 8. Because this is for mini pies, you'll want the crust to be slightly thinner than you would do for a normal 9" pie.
• 9. Once you're happy with the thickness, use a 3" cookie cutter to cut circles from the crust. A 3" cutter is the perfect size for lining up the edge of the crust with the edge of the mini muffin tin... I've also found that a mason jar lid (with the rims) will work very well if you don't have cookie cutters.
• 10. Follow your pan's directions as far as whether or not you need to spray or grase or butter your pan. I did not spray or grease my mini muffin tin in any way - but you might need to if you don't have a nonstick pan or if the nonstick coating has been compromised.
• 11. As you're placing the crusts into the pan, push down in the center gently, then ease the edges up the sides.
• 12. Of course, you'll need to roll up the scraps into a new ball and then roll them back out again to finish up the pans.
• 13. In your mixing bowl, beat the eggs lightly.
• 14. Blend in the corn syrup, sugar, melted butter, vanilla and flour and continue mixing until everything is blended well and has started to thicken.
• 15. Stir in the chopped pecans. For a normal 9" pie, I would use 4 cups of pecan halves; but since this is for mini pies, I chopped those up a little more and found that the 3 cups works better.
• 16. Use a piping bag with a wide tip or a ziptop bag with a cut corner to pipe the filling into the crusts.
• 17. Bake for 40-50 minutes until they are a nice, golden brown.
• 18. Remove your mini pies from the tin and set them on a wire rack to cool slightly before serving.