I have learned that the European company Lekue usually produces well-designed items with a modern and sleek look aimed to, as the company says, “simplify all the processes in the kitchen, helping you to eat well.”
The promise with Lekue’s Kit Mini Pies is that it will “effortlessly prepare 19 mini pies in one go.”
HOW IT WORKS
The kit includes a mold that makes hexagon-shaped pies on one side and round pies on the other, along with two rollers to cut the pastry, one of which makes a lattice cut, pictured at right.
Place a sheet of pastry over the mold, pushing the dough gently down to form pockets, add filling to the pockets, then top with another piece of pastry. Use the flat roller to cut away the excess dough. (For lattice pies, use the other roller on the second sheet of pastry. Spread open the slits, then place the sheet over the filled pastries. Place parchment on top and then use the flat roller to cut.)
Push each pie out, or place a cookie sheet on top of the mold and turn it over to release the pies (although you shouldn’t use that technique with the lattice-topped pies; the filling will fall out). Brush the tops with an egg wash and bake.
DOES IT WORK?
Yes. I used Pepperidge Farm puff pastry and had my cousin’s 3-year-old daughter Leila fill each pocket with apple pie filling, a pinch of cinnamon and a piece of butter. With a few passovers of the flat roller we quickly had 16 mini pies ready for the oven.
Some tips:
>> To maximize the filling, push the dough down as much as possible and don’t overfill or some filling will leak out during baking. Also, the instructions call for dabbing the edges with egg to help the top crust stick to the bottom. We didn’t do that and it was fine.
>> Instead of pushing out each dessert from the mold like the video shows on the Lekue site, I found it easier to lay a cookie sheet on top of the mold and then flip it over. My young sous chef had fun pulling off the extra dough. (Don’t do this if you have lattice tops though, the filling will spill out.) Then we gently flipped over each pouch and brushed the tops with an egg wash, as the directions instructed.
>> All 19 pies don’t have to be the same. We had leftover bacon one morning so I mixed it into an egg batter and made a few quiche-type pies along with some cherry pies.
>> The Pepperidge Farm pastry was a little too small for the mold, but I found that I was able to stretch it to almost fit. I also tried store-bought pie crust (the type you have to unroll), which fit the mold better; pizza crust in a can (it was so soft I had a hard time working with it) and phyllo dough (decent but not as pretty as puff pastry).
>> Reusing scrap dough worked for the pie and pizza dough but not for the phyllo and puff-pastry doughs. The phyllo scraps were too small to reuse and the puff pastry dough scraps didn’t rise like the pristine sheets.
>> Don’t bother with the hexagonal shape if you’re using puff pastry or pizza dough; when they expand the shape is lost. Pie crust and phyllo dough hold the shape better. Still, out of all the doughs my favorite was the puff pastry, even if it didn’t look perfect.
PROS
Fast and easy to use. Kit includes five recipes; a few more can be found at lekue.com. My young sous-chef had fun pulling the extra dough off of the mold.
CONS
The mold has a lot of crevices to wash, but it is top-shelf dishwasher safe. I wish the mold produced a deeper pie to hold more filling. You’ll have to play with filling amounts — less for runny types that could bubble over, such as chocolate spreads and soft cheeses.
COST AND AVAILABILITY
$27 plus $20 shipping at fancyflours.com.
WORTH IT?
I love it! I’m more of a cookie-and-cake type of baker so to be able to make about 19 mini pies quickly was cool, even though they didn’t turn out perfect. And it’s simple enough for children to use, too.
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