Blackberry Hand Pies
Love a good pie but particularly love the concept of a hand pie. No sharing. You get an entire pie to yourself. The crunchy outer crust, the fruit inside. Reminds me of those manufactured pies that I ate as a kid from Hostess.
Hand pies are not the easiest thing to make. Sort of like dumplings. The more you make, the better you get. The key is not using as much inside as you think and rolling the dough out relatively thin. Otherwise you end up with very few hand pies.
I made enough dough for one pie. Any of your favorite pie crust recipes will do. This made 6 large hand pies and 3 tiny ones. My dough recipe is as follows:
2 1/2 cups flour
2 sticks unsalted butter (chopped up and cold)
1/2 t. kosher salt
1 T. white sugar
1/4 to 1/2 cup cold water
I have been using a Cuisinart these days to make dough and it works well. Put in the flour, salt, sugar and butter, pulse until it looks like there are little peas of butter in the flour. Slowly add the water while pulsing. The reason I give a range in water depends on how quickly the dough starts to become dough. Sometimes if the air is wet the dough forms quicker and if it is dry it takes more water. I can’t imagine ever having to use more than 1/2 cup. If the dough doesn’t look like it has formed after that much water. Open up the Cuisinart and stick the dough together with your hands. Guaranteed the dough sticks. Also, you do not want to pulse the dough too long after the water is in.
Blackberry filling:
I made more than I needed but that was okay. I used the left overs on vanilla ice cream the next day, heated.
4 cups of blackberries
1 large Golden Delicious apple, peeled and coarsely grated
1/4 cup + 2 tsp. seminola flour
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup milk (any kind) and some extra white sugar for sprinkling
Put all the ingredients together (except the milk) into a heavy saucepan. Stir frequently over a medium heat. In about 5 minutes the mixture will get thick. Set aside to cool.
Once the dough is ready (after being in the refrigerator for about 2 hours to set). Take out and roll to as big as possible a large rectangle. I attempted to get it to a 16 by 11 size at 1/8 inch thick. The key is just making it big enough to cut out the squares. Each square should be 5 inches on each side.
Then moisten the edges of the square with milk. Use a pastry brush if you have one. Place a heating tablespoon of the fruit mixture in the middle of the square. Fold over to make a triangle and seal the edges. Then take a fork and press the tines around the edges. Brush the top with milk and sprinkle some white sugar on top. I put the pies in the refrigerator in between making them so they stayed cold which makes for easier baking. After making each one I put them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
Bake at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes or until golden brown. I turned the pans halfway through the process so they were evenly cooked.
Really fun to make and the results are worth it. Btw, you could probably do this with blueberries too.