Mixed Plate: Hello, My Little Petite Sweet...

Tis the season for sugary sweets and decadent treats.. and then wondering why the pants don't fit come New Year's Day. It's so hard to resist all the goodies around this time of year! Especially when you work at an office and every week someone brings in something homemade or clients are sending gifts of thanks like fancy chocolates. And don't get me started on the day one of my office mates introduced me to the entity known as The Kringle. And it's definitely the season for making at-home treats, both to give away and hoard for yourself, and therein lies this bloggy sweet tale...

Deck the halls with... shiny stuff! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I don't have an office break room anymore to indulge in communal sweets, but I do get into a baking mood when the holidays come 'round. I was decorating the house, pulling out Christmas stuff one weekend and it just didn't feel like the holidays until the house had the smell of fresh baked goods perfuming the air. And just doing a run-through with a cinnamon/vanilla scented candle wasn't going to cut it. 

I had been meaning to try the recipes from the new Petite Treats cookbook, from the wild n' crazy gals over at Mini Empire Bakery. It's their newest book, as adorably cute and petite-sized as their first book, Mini Pies, which I enjoyed baking from as well. If you haven't already done your holiday shopping, it's one of those cute, charming cookbooks that make for easy gifts, since it's full of photos, the recipes are for familiar desserts, and there's a lot of good options and suggestions for making things vegan, gluten-free and just a more natural way of enjoying your sweets. And the best thing is, the desserts are MINI, so you can EAT MORE. This logic of mini desserts is brilliant.

Petite Sweets from the Mini Empire Bakery team gives you a reason to eat your beets! - Photos by Wasabi Prime

I wanted to try their Red Velvet Yippee Cakes, which are a mini version of whoopie pies. Having made whoopie pies before and seeing how large they can be, and how much butter goes into the icing, you get a little of that reality shock. As wonderful as they taste, it's the Thing That Cannot Be Unseen, remembering how many sticks of butter had to be sacrificed for a healthy slathering of sweet, iced filling. Making a mini version of whoopie pies was much easier for my brain's calorie counter to handle, plus the recipe in Petite Treats uses beets to give the red velvet cake it's signature hue. Traditionally, beets were part of the original recipe, the ingredient that gave the cake that distinctive color, but thanks to the popularity of this vintage recipe and the need to play up the red hue for TV Land and Food Photography-ville, most recipes suggest using a scary amount of red food dye. Granted, the dye is safe and it's not like the crazy tumor-growing stuff we all drank down in iced Cherry Squishee form back in the 80s, but that red color really is quite alarming, especially in the large amount required to make today's expectation of red velvet cake.

Their recipe called for canned beets, which has the benefit of the beet juice -- nature's food coloring! And don't get it on anything, it stains like Bloody Murder. I used roasted beets, just because I had them, but don't worry, whether home roasted or canned, you're not going to take a bite from the cake and say, "Mmm... borscht-y!" I've baked with beets before, even blended them into chocolate brownies to keep it moist -- they're ideal to bake with chocolate, as the bitter cocoa goes nicely with the slightly earthy, but sweet beets. You don't taste them at all, and for this recipe, they lend their color in a more natural way, more of a burgundy color. While the cake won't have that blood red look that you usually see, it's a truer red velvet cake. And hey, burgundy is one of the hot trend colors of the year, so consider your dessert extra fashionable.

I didn't have a special pan to make each little yippee pie that perfect mound-shape, and I wasn't sure if the dough would run on the pan, so I made square yippee pies. As Huey Lewis and the News would say: It's Hip to be Square. The cake batter is stiff enough to where you could pipe or carefully spoon each half onto a prepared baking sheet, just being mindful to keep each dollop as uniform as possible. I basically made a red velvet brownie, then once it was cooled, carefully sliced it across the middle and added frosting to the center before slicing into smaller pieces. I personally love cream cheese frosting, so I used that as the filling, but the recipe comes with a great buttercream icing recipe, which is more true to whoopie/yippee form.

Something sweet to give - lavender sugar - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I saved our mini red velvet cakes for ourselves, as the cream cheese frosting made it a little harder to mail out to family and friends. We have to save a little something sweet for ourselves, right? But while I was in my baking/decorating mode, I managed to make a quick batch of lavender sugar, something sweet that's very easy to package up and give to friends. In the final stages of homemade gifts, I had some dried lavender from a friend's garden and plain white sugar. I buzzed the lavender buds and sugar in a food processor until they were as chopped up as possible, and then divided up the fragrant sugar into those quaint little Weck jars, which are all the crafty rage these days. A pretty blue-lavender bow, and these little darlings were ready to gift to friends who like to bake or drink tea. A little sprinkle of this in tea is wonderful, it sweetens and perfumes the drink beautifully. You could probably incorporate it in cocktails as well, but again, using it sparingly as the lavender is strong. I used this sugar in this year's lavender shortbread cookies, cutting the regular sugar with some lavender sugar to make the cookies extra special.

A sweet finish to a productive holiday weekend - Photos by Wasabi Prime

And so I managed to cross off several holiday to-do's on my list, while enjoying a house smelling like sweet cake and lavender. It's a rare moment of holiday heaven when you can both feel productive and be rewarded with a delicious dessert afterwards. Don't forget to put Mini Empire's book on your holiday gift list, or for any dessert fan in your life -- everyone deserves to have a little something sweet now and then.

OMG a Recipe (if you get this new book): Me-Oh-My, it's Mini Pies!

I've confessed of my deep, abiding love for miniature food in the past. Mini burgers, aka the ubiquitous "slider," pigs in a blanket, I love them all -- but what about pastries, or more to the point, pies? All the delight and enjoyment of a slice of delicious pie in a single bite -- brilliant. And besides, it's kinda funny to see the look on people's faces when you tell them you ate a whole apple and pumpkin pie in one sitting. *burp*

Apple Chai Mini Pie - it's a superstar! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I had the opportunity to check out a friend of a friend's (thanks, Chuckman!!) new cookbook that just came out, Mini Pies by Christy Beaver and Morgan Greenseth. It's exactly that, a cute little book full of miniaturized sweet and savory pies, and techniques over how to make this mini-magic happen in your own kitchen. Christy and Morgan are the dynamic piemaking duo behind Mini Empire Bakery, a shop in Seattle making all kinds of yummy desserts with a focus on quality local ingredients and having a full menu of options including vegan and gluten-free choices.  I know that probably sounds like a typical bakery to a lot of people lucky to live in large cities or in regions close to a bounty of fresh produce, but we forget there's quite a lot of places where a bakery like this would be a dream come true. We forget what a rare gem quality bakeries can be! So a cookbook like this is especially nice, as people everywhere can still have a taste of Mini Empire Bakery, even if they are hundreds of miles away. The book includes instructions for making vegan-friendly pie crust, there's a lot of soy milk used in recipes, and there are different options for how to fill or top a pie however a person may choose, whether they have dietary needs or not. The book is full of inspiring photos of wee baby pies, and creative ideas for flavors.

With this book, you can create your own Mini Empire at home! - Photos by Wasabi Prime

I could have made a big batch of mini pies and sat on the couch to graze on my dessert bounty, watching my thighs grow. But no! I wanted to make several of the mini pie filling recipes and also foist some gently-used clothing on friends for a clothing swap brunch. Mini pies, like the full sized ones, have the same challenge as most desserts -- you can't just make a little bit. Even with the miniature size, you get the equivalent of a full pie, just portioned out in single servings, so invite friends over or package them up as a gift, because they're ridiculously adorable as they are dangerous to have around. You'll eat all of them, I swear. I decided to make a range of pie options, two savory and two sweet. I went with the season, choosing their classic pumpkin and a spicy number, a chai apple for the dessert pies, and a caramelized onion with olive tapenade, and a spinach and cheese quiche for savory. Mini pie brunch and a clothing swap -- it's not a bad way to try some new recipes and trade some wardrobe goods amongst friends. I have to say, clothing swaps are my new favorite thing, and it doesn't have to be clothing, could be anything -- books, kitchen tools, etc. It's kind of like an indoor rummage sale, except that it's a swap and everyone brings their own stuff to trade.

Pie filling factory - Photos by Wasabi Prime

I modified some of the recipes a hair -- I had some leftover turkey slices, so I sliced and crisped it in a pan, while wilting some fresh spinach for the savory egg and spinach quiche. It made them a little more hearty, since I had more sweet than savory options. For the caramelized onion pie, I used kalamata olives for the tapenade versus a mix of olives. Again, I was going more with what I had available, but their recipe would yield a nice creamy tapenade with the combination of olives. For the sweet pies, I had fresh roasted pumpkin on hand, which I mixed with the other ingredients in a food processor to help blend down the chunks. About one small sugar pumpkin is enough to yield the 8 ounces needed in the recipe, if you decide to go with fresh squash. For the chai apple filling, the recipe calls for Granny Smith, which are ideal for dessert pies since they're nicely tart and firm. We had a surplus of Fuji apples from our CSA, so I went with those instead, which turned out perfectly. When you're making multiple pie fillings, I recommend making or preparing as much of the fillings ahead as possible, so they're ready to fill the readied dough shells. Our kitchen may have looked like a mad array of bowls and dishes full of oddball things, but once the batches of filled mini pies were going into the oven and baking away, it went pretty fast.

Filling pies and cutting the dough just right - Photos by Wasabi Prime

As to the tools of the trade -- I didn't have specialty miniature pie tins. A lot of bakeries are starting on this trend, and there are mini pie tins available at kitchen supply stores. But the Mini Pies cookbook suggests using your muffin and cupcake pans, which work just dandy. I have multiple sizes: wee bitty appetizer tart pans, regular cupcake-sized pans, and Texas muffin-sized pans. I had mixed amounts of filling for the savory pies. Since they were more chunky with the whole ingredients, I thought they would fill the small bite-sized appetizer pans better, showing off their texture. I did have extra spinach and turkey quiche filling, but that was by design -- I baked off the excess in ramekins for a quick breakfast while I was working. The cook's gotta eat too, right?

I saved the larger cupcake-sized pans for the dessert pies, since I had more filling for those. The real trick was getting the sizing right for when the pie dough needed to be placed into each tart or cupcake mold. It needs to be cut in a large enough circle to make a fully-formed shell up the side of each mold shape, so you find yourself hunting around the kitchen for round shapes that can make a nice, clean cut. A biscuit cutter was perfect for the little bite-sized pies. The standard cupcake pans required something larger and I was pleased to find that the metal top for a cocktail shaker makes a just-right circle! Plus the sharp, clean metal edge ensured a clean cut. I know people say to use a wine or cocktail glass for cutting pastry rounds, but some glasses have rounded, blunt edges, making it harder to cut. Plus, it's glass and you hate to mess around with that if there's an accident. It's all fun and games until someone gets a big shard of glass in their dessert.

Savory mini pie goodness! - Photos by Wasabi Prime

The mini pies were a hit. Sure, it requires a little extra effort versus making one large pie, but gosh darnit if they're not cute as all get-out. And it inspired me to consider doing mini pies for Thanksgiving. I'll still make the traditional pumpkin pie, but maybe pecan and apple or pear, in mini form, so there's less hard decisions to make when dessert comes around. You could easily have two of these small pies in one sitting. Even three! 

Much thanks to the girls at Mini Empire Bakery for letting me cook through some of their recipes and enjoy their wonderful new book,  Mini Pies. This is a great gift idea if you're looking for something to make/give to someone for the holidays -- the book is small and would go nicely with a batch of mini pies!