Every year my mom's family heads up to Ashton, ID, for the annual Murri family reunion. Packed full of fun with a ring toss tournament, floating down the river on tubes, card games, etc., the reunion is always a blast and never disappoints.Last year my twin and I started bringing fun cupcakes to share with the family. We started with owl cupcakes (because of the owl family living in one of the trees at my grandparents' cabin) and this year we made pies. The idea for these pies came from the book What's New, Cupcake? and they were so fun to make. They took a little time to put together, but they were so yummy and fun that it was totally worth the time. And they weren't hard to do at all. We had our husbands cutting fruit at the same time so we got a lot done!
We made blueberry, cherry, and apple pie cupcakes. These little pie cupcakes would be really fun at a picnic or family BBQ. They were a big hit at our family reunion and very delicious!
Pie Cupcakes
What's New, Cupcake? book
makes 24 cupcakes
- 24 vanilla cupcakes, baked in foil liners
- 2 cans (16 oz each) vanilla frosting
- yellow food coloring
- 1 tsp. cocoa powder
- 1 c. each of red, blue, and green M&M's or Jelly Belly (or whatever color you'd like) - We bought M&M's from Zurcher's. It would take a lot of bags to try and get the right colors so I suggest spending the money to get M&M's or Jelly Belly from the big dispensers.
Begin by tinting the frosting with 4 drops of yellow food coloring and 1 tsp. cocoa powder. You'll get a nice light brown for the pie crust. (Notice the frosting above is white? We forgot to tint the frosting at the beginning and went to the next step. Oops! The M&M's covered it so you couldn't tell.) After the frosting is tinted, spread some of it on top of a cupcake, leaving about 1/4 inch of the cupcake edge exposed.
Next, start arranging the M&M's ('m' side down) or Jelly Bell on top of the frosting. Keep arranging the candy till the frosting is covered. You can do what we did above and keep going with the candy around and around flat against each other (using 18 or 19 M&M's on each cupcake), or you can do what the book instructs and pile them up a bit and use about 25 pieces per cupcake.
I love all the colors! So pretty!From here I forgot to take pictures. Not sure what I was thinking!
Next, place some of the frosting in a plastic Ziploc freezer or storage bag. Press out the excess air and seal. Snip the tip off one of the corners so when you press the frosting out it comes out in nice strips to make the lattice (about 1/8 inch snip). For the lattice crust, pipe 4 or 5 lines across the cupcake, about 1/2 inch apart. Then pipe 4 or 5 more lines on the diagonal. If you place the M&M's like we did all you have to do is follow the rows of candy to do the piping right down the crease between each row. The rows make a natural guide to follow. Then pipe a beaded edge around the rest of the cupcake. Repeat with the other cupcakes.
For a cute display, arrange them on a wire rack and make several bake sale tags to put with the different types of cupcakes.
For a cute display, arrange them on a wire rack and make several bake sale tags to put with the different types of cupcakes.
