Tiny cherry pies

You've noticed by now, I'm sure, that anything good is much better in huge or tiny form. Take cherry pie. Good when normal-sized, exceedingly adorable in miniature. This recipe was sourced from the Honest Cooking blog, where it was penned by aspiring nutritionist and soon-to-be culinary student Claire Gallam, who also has her own blog: the Realistic Nutritionist.

I start with the dough. Gallam is American so she calls for ''two sticks of butter''. According to a quick conversion, that's about 230 grams, or pretty much an entire slab.

The dough is easy. I chuck the dry ingredients into our food processor and hit the pulse button. The butter goes in. Pulse. Then the ice water goes in, one tablespoon at a time, with pulsing in between.

After a while I hear a thudding sound. The machine's blades are working hard because inside there is a big lump of dough. Cool. I barely had to do anything. This dough has to rest for eight hours (hey, that's more rest than I get). I make two big balls, clingwrap them and put in the fridge.

Gallam's recipe calls for ''eight ounces of all-natural organic cherry pie filling''.

I'm going to have to make some, so I end up guessing a bit, modifying a recipe for another kind of pie and scaling back the quantities.

I'm using one large jar of morello cherries (600 grams), 50 grams of castor sugar, two tablespoons of lemon juice and a little bit of almond essence.

I am also using the wonderful resource that is my mother, Toi, who is my dessert helper for the second night of pie making.

She is tasked with the pie filling. She strains away most of the liquid from the cherries, then puts everything in a medium saucepan and simmers away the liquid that seeps out. She stirs, tests the taste and declares it excellent.

While mum works on the pie filling, I'm wrangling the dough. After its eight-hour beauty sleep, it is rock hard. Attempting to massage it back to life with warm hands is not effective. But 10 seconds in the microwave for each ball brings it back to a malleable state. I roll it out, cut out circles using a jar lid and form mini pastry shells in a muffin tin. Each shell holds a couple of spoonfuls of cherries quite nicely. After 11 minutes in the oven, we're done. The treats smell magnificent and also look as cute as promised. They have browned nicely and, to my relief, the cherries have not released any more liquid in the oven.

Mum and I do a taste test. They're remarkably good and seriously delicious. The pastry is flaky, light and not at all greasy, the cherries are tart, refreshing and just right. ''The perfect pies,'' mum says.

Cute cherry pie bites

Crust

2½ cups plain flour

2 tsp white sugar

dash of salt

230g butter

6-8 tbsp ice water

Filling

230g cherry pie filling (see story)

To make the crust, combine the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor; pulse to mix. Add butter and pulse on low until mixture resembles coarse oatmeal. Add the ice water one tablespoon at a time, pulsing until mixture begins to moisten.

Grease a hard surface and put dough on it. With floured hands, knead the dough about three times. Then, carefully shape the dough into two discs. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least eight hours. Once dough has chilled, pre-heat the oven to 220C. Liberally grease a muffin tin and set aside.

Using a floured rolling pin, roll the dough to about six millimetres thick. Using a cookie cutter, cut out dough circles. You want enough dough to fill the entire muffin cavity (with some overhang).

Fit dough into the cavities. Then, carefully spoon about 1½ tablespoons of the filling into each dough cavity. Bake for about 11 minutes, or until crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbly. Let chill for at least an hour, then serve with whipped cream.