Individual Apple and Plum Pies with Streusel Topping

adapted from Apple Pie by Ken Haedrich, 2002

Ingredients:

  • Pastry dough for a single crust pie

Filling:

  • 3 large cooking apples (Twenty Oz. or Wealthy) – cored and sliced

  • 8 small plums – quartered and pitted (I used 12 plums)

  • 1/3 cup sugar – less if your plums are sweet

  • 1 Tbs lemon juice

  • Grated zest of 1 lemon

  • ½ Tbs flour

Streusel Topping:

  • ¼ cup flour

  • ½ cup oats

  • 1/3 cup brown sugar

  • ¼ tsp salt

  • 1/8 tsp cinnamon

  • ¼ cup cold, unsalted butter – cut into ¼” pieces

Directions:

Ken Haedrich recommends cooking these pies in 10-ounce, oven-proof custard cups. I used individual pie tins, the size that mini Table Talk pies used to come in, and they worked fine. Whichever you prefer, get four of them out before you begin to make sure you have enough on hand.  If not, I’m betting that this recipe would be delicious as a full-size pie too.

  1. Prepare pastry. Divide it into four equal pieces and shape each quarter into a disk. Wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least an hour until firm enough to roll out.

  2. Combine the apples, plums, sugar, lemon juice and zest, and flour in a mixing bowl. Mix well and set aside.

  3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

  4. Get out 4 10 oz oven-proof custard cups or individual pie tins.

  5. When the pie dough is firm, roll out each disk one at a time into a 7½“ – 8” circle. Place each in a custard cup or mini pie tin. Ken says if you are using the custard cups, you should make four 1½” slices evenly spaced around each of the rolled out doughs so that it will “self-pleat” when you place it in the cup. This wasn’t necessary with the individual pie tins.

  6. Place the dough into the cups/tins, gently press into the corners and let the dough hang over the edge. Turn the extra dough under itself and flatten it into a thick edge. Refrigerate each until ready to fill.

  7. Spoon an equal amount of filling into each of the cups/tins. Place them on a large baking sheet and place in the center rack of the oven. Bake for 25 minutes.

  8. While the pies bake, make the streusel topping. Place the dry ingredients in a food processor and pulse several times to mix. Remove the lid, and scatter the butter cubes over the dry ingredients. Pulse until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Dump the crumbs into a bowl and rub between your fingers to make large crumbs. Refrigerate.

  9. After 25 minutes, remove the pies from the oven. Reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees. Divide the topping evenly over the pies and pat it down with the back of a spoon. Return to the oven for 20 minutes or until the juices are bubbling up through the topping.

  10. Let pies cool for 30 minutes before serving. Try serving with a vanilla custard sauce.