As a fun family activity to kick off the fall season, I thought we could be extra “fancy” and attempt to make apple pies, and cap off the evening with a game night! Inspired by our favorite country song “Fancy Like” by Walker Hayes. My baking skills are usually limited to heating up a frozen pizza in the oven, but I’m hoping to encourage my kids to be more savvy in the kitchen then I am.
I stopped into Target and rounded up all the ingredients from the Good & Gather grocery line. (I was excited to find that they had a Gluten Free 1:1 Flour Blend so that I would be able to eat the pies!) I also picked up some hot chocolate mixes that will be great for entertaining, and some other fun snacks for the kids to nibble on during our family day.
While I was at Target, I couldn’t resist the coordinating aprons for my kids, and the adorable little fall leaf cutouts for future baking projects. I also found a jumbo muffin tin that was perfect for the mini pies! I knew this would be a fun memory for our family, and thankfully everything was very affordable at Target.
We got to work on the apple pies using a mini apple pie recipe that is both vegan + gluten free! I will link it here: https://thebananadiaries.com/mini-apple-pies-vegan/. We diced up all the apples and began to stir in the spices with my littlest helpers.
Next, daddy helped roll out the homemade dough to create the mini pie crust, and then we added the apple filling. As you can see, the kids were mesmerized by this process!
Then we layered more dough on the top to complete the mini pies and we baked for 25 minutes! We anxiously waited in suspense to see if our homemade pies would turn out, and to my surprise they were actually the most darling mini pies (and actually tasted very good!) Considering I’m not a very skilled baker, these turned out far better then I would have ever imagined.
After we ate our pies, we capped off the night with a family game night! We have a 3, 6, and 9 year old so it can be challenging to find a fun game that all ages can enjoy. I found a game at Target called “Family Bingo” for ages 3-6+ and it was so much fun! It has varying degrees of difficulty depending on your kids ages, so we did the easiest version where you just have to identify animal faces on your bingo card. All three of our kids loved the game, so I would highly recommend if you have younger kids.
When my son went to bed later that evening, he told me that he had the best day making pies and playing games as a family! It was a reminder of how important it is to set aside these moments as a family to plan something meaningful to create memories together as a family.
