What's Easier Than Baking Mini Pies? Decorating Cupcakes To Look Like Them

From mini apple pies to mini chicken pot pies, the art of the shrunken pie is more popular than ever, and for good reason. Why cut yourself a big, gooey slice of pie when you could simply pick one up and eat it in just a few bites? One way of embracing the mini pie trend is much easier to make and less messy to eat than others, but it's equally delicious. Any dessert fan knows that cupcakes can be made to look like pretty much anything, but decorating them to look like mini pies is surprisingly easy. All that's required is plenty of icing and some basic piping skills.

You can use any cake as the base for your mini pie cupcake, but of course, an on-theme flavor is preferred. Next, you'll need to color a batch of icing for your filling (i.e., red for cherries, orange for pumpkin, etc.) and another for your crust. Set aside a piping bag with three piping tips: a large, round tip; a flower or star tip; and a basketweave tip, aka the flat one that looks like a straight line. From there, you can start prepping your mini pie cupcakes, even if this is your first foray into fancy frosting.

If you want to make cherry pie cupcakes, for example, just fill a piping bag with cherry-colored icing and add your round tip. Use the bag to pipe dollops of icing all over the top of the cupcake, creating your "cherries." Be sure not to overcrowd the cupcake with too many faux cherries, and leave a border around the edge. With your frosting cherries in place, switch over to your crust-colored icing and your basketweave tip. Pipe rows of the icing across the cherries until they cover the cupcake's surface. Next, create perpendicular rows to achieve the look of a lattice pie crust.

Finish up with your pie-crust icing and the flower tip. Pipe textured icing around the cupcake's perimeter, as this will mimic the appearance of a real, homemade crust. For the perfect finishing touch, you can sprinkle some sugar glitter or powdered sugar on top. If you'd prefer, you can swap your cherry-colored icing for a deep blue and change your cherry pie to blueberry.