Pie Pops

Here's a fun and easy (easier than cake pops anyway) recipe to make your very own Pie Pops. That's right, Pie Pops, little pies...on a stick! And who doesn't love eating food on a stick? (That was very Paula Deen of me. I apologize.) It may seem like there are a lot of steps and directions, but if you read it all the way through, it's really pretty simple.

Pie Crust Ingredients: (Yields approx. 18 Pie Pops)
- 2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
- 1/4 tsps of salt
- 3 tblsp. sugar
- 1 cup (2 sticks) cold butter or margarine diced into cubes (I use margarine to make it non-dairy)
- 1/4 cup of ice water

Other materials:
- Short and thick skewers or thick lollipop sticks
- Circle Cookie Cutter (2 inch diameter)

Directions:
- In a large mixing bowl, put in flour, salt, sugar, and butter/margarine until butter is broken up and the mixture is a little grainy. (I use the paddle attachment on my stand-mixer on medium speed.)
- Slowly add in ice-water and let the mixture go until just combined. If you need to add a little more ice water, you can, just add a very little bit at a time.
- Take dough out and roll into a large disc, then split that dough into 2 smaller discs, wrap in plastic wrap and then put in the refrigerator until you're ready to make the pops (at least a half-hour). Don't handle too much because you don't want the heat from your hands to ruin the dough.

What about the filling?
So, here's the deal, I don't really like pie. The only type of pie I might try is blueberry pie, so I decided to make a blueberry filling for my Pie Pops. However, you can fill them with whatever sort of filling you want. Heck, you could probably put a nice hazelnut or chocolate filling in them and they would probably be just as delicious.

Blueberry Filling Ingredients:
*This is the whole recipe which makes waaayyyyyy more blueberries than you'll need for the pops. So, you can either cut this recipe in fourths (1 cup of blueberries, 1/4 cup of sugar, 1/2 tblsp. corn starch), or you can double the pie crust recipe, make four discs, and use two of them to make pie pops and the other two to make a regular ol' blueberry pie).
- 4 cups of fresh blueberries
- 1 cup of sugar
- 2 tblsp. corn starch
- Splash of lemon juice (you can add lemon zest too if you want)

Directions:
- In a small skillet, pour in blueberries, sugar, corn starch, and lemon juice and cook over a medium/low heat for approximately 10-12 minutes then set aside to cool.

NOW YOU'RE READY TO MAKE PIE POPS!!

Directions:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Take out one of the discs of pie crust from the refrigerator (I use one disc at a time so I don't take up too much space and the dough won't get too warm) and, on a floured surface, use a rolling pin to roll the dough out until it's between 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick.
- Using a circle cookie cutter (2 inches in diameter), cut out as many circles as you can from the dough. Take the excess dough, roll it back into a ball, roll it out, and continue to cut out circles until you've used most of the dough. *Once the first disc of pie crust is gone/almost gone, use the second one.

- On a non-stick baking sheet, space out the circles (approximately 8 at a time) and place a skewer/lollipop stick in the center of each one. Push the sticks down a little bit so they stay in the dough.

- Then, scoop a little bit of the filling and place it right in the center of the circle. (They don't need very much filling and don't put too much of the juice from the filling.)

- Next, take another one of the circles (you may need to stretch it out just a little bit) and place it over the fruit and push down the edges gently, just enough so the two circles are closed. (Some juice from the filling may come out....that's fine.)
- Use a fork to go around the outside of the circles and crimp the edges together. *You may want to use a small paring knife to make three small slits on the top for air vents.
- Brush a little bit of egg wash on the top of each pop. (One egg with 1 tblsp. of water combined.)
- Sprinkle a little bit of sugar on the top of each of the pops.

- Put the pops in the oven for 25 minutes.
- When you take them out of the oven, use a metal spatula to carefully remove them from the cookie sheet and lay them flat to cool.
- Eat the pie pops.
- Say, "Yum!"