Strawberry mini pies

These are the best strawberry mini pies ever. Homemade pie pastry from scratch and delicious fresh strawberry filing, so flavorful and delicious, that it will melt in your mouth.
With this recipe you have two options – to prepare one big strawberry pie or go for the “a bit longer” mini pies option. Whatever you choose to do, I am sure this will be your new favorite recipe.
When making the big pie, things are pretty straight forward and easy – roll, fill, bake.
On the other hand, when making mini pies, you have to make sure you have the balance of dough and filling. You don’t want pies to be too much dough and no filling or the opposite. So, you will need to roll the dough thinly, almost transparent, but not too thinly that it brakes after you remove pies from the baking tins. The good news is that you will be working with small amounts of dough at a time, so even if you roll dough super thinly, you will be able to easily transfer it to the mini pie tins.
Detailed instructions on how to make these little heaven pies are following!

Ingredients for the sweet pastry dough (makes 12 mini tartlets, 10cm. (4inch) each or 1x22cm (8 inch) round pie):
280 grams (10 oz) flour
100 grams (3,5 oz) powder sugar
1/2 tea spoon salt
135 grams (4,8 oz) butter, at room temperature
2 medium egg yolks
5 tablespoons (25 ml.) cold water or milk
For the filling:
About 600 grams (21 oz)  strawberries, chopped into small pieces
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
100 grams (3,5 oz) granulated sugar
A pinch of salt
2 tablespoons plain cornstarch (could be also flavored starch of your choice)
1 tablespoon flour
For brushing: 1 egg yolk

To make the dough:
Combine flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Add the soften butter (chopped into small pieces) and start mixing with your fingers (or pulse briefly in a food processor if you prefer) until coarse crumbs form (butter pieces should be about the size of a pea). Add the egg yolk and quickly knead until the dough comes together. If dough is too dry and doesn’t come together add one or two table spoons of water or milk, one by one, until dough is wet enough to form a ball, but not too sticky. Do NOT overwork the dough, just pulse a few times and then shape it using your hands. Shape dough into a disk, cover in plastic wrap and put in the fridge to firm up, about 30 minutes. If making one large pie, then divide dough into two parts – 1/3rd (to use to cover the pie) and 2/3rd (to use for the bottom of the pie) and put int he fridge for 30 minutes.
Remove 2/3rd part pastry from the fridge and set over a floured wooden board or your counter top. Roll the dough into a large circle, enough to cover the bottom and sides of your pie baking dish. Gently transfer the rolled dough on a greased pie baking dish. Press it down to the bottom and sides and set in the fridge until you are ready with the filling.
If making mini pies: divide dough into 4 equal parts and put in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Take one part of the dough out of the fridge and roll on a floured kneading board. Cut out of it as many circles as possible. Use a round cookie cutter, slightly bigger than your mini pie baking dishes. Place all circles of dough over the mini pie baking dishes and press down to sides and bottom. Transfer to the fridge until needed.
Prepare the filling:
In a large bowl. combine strawberries, vanilla, lemon juice and sugar.
In another bowl combine flour, salt and cornstarch and then add to the strawberries. Gently stir to coat all strawberries.
Assembling pies:
Pour filling into prepared baking pie dish or mini pie dishes.
Remove the rest of the dough from the fridge and roll on a floured kneading board. Use cookie cutters to cut out “tops” for your mini pies, cut out different flowers or make a lace out of the dough. Decoration part is your choice.
Brush pie/pies with the egg yolk and bake in a preheated oven to 180C (350F) for about 30 minutes for mini pies and 45 minutes for a large pie.

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