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A slice of pie is nice but a hand pie, be still my heart! Double crust, warm filling, a single serving pastry that can be eaten out of hand, a grown-up pop tart, only better!
When you bake a whole pie, there’s commitment; commitment to eight big pieces, ten thin slices or twelve slivers. That feels like a relationship when all I really want is a date. Maybe tonight I would like blueberry pie, tomorrow may feel like a peach kind of day, Thursday goes better with strawberry rhubarb. If I make a whole pie, I better have eight big, ten thin or twelve slivers of friends to help me or by the end of the week, I’ll have a half-eaten pie that I can’t bear to finish or throw away. Sweet or savory, hand pies satisfy for dessert of course, but can stand in as a make-ahead breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Hand pies make use of leftovers, highlight seasonal stars, and please a crowd. Tupperware haters can easily tuck leftovers within a crust and it feels like a fresh new dish. Berries & fruits bubble with delight hidden inside a crisp hand pie crust, and those that don’t like to share or can’t compromise can have their way with a different variety. World peace by way of the hand pie!
There are a few tricks of the trade that will help make a good hand pie a better hand pie but don’t put too much pressure on yourself the first time. Get the feel of the dough, practice rolling rectangle instead of round, adjust for moisture levels in food; too much and you’ll be eating a soggy mess with a fork off a plate, not enough and you’ll feel like you’re eating a cardboard box. What’s the worst thing that can happen, you must practice more? That’s just more pie and what the heck can be wrong with that? Sweet or Savory, Here’s some help:
- Filling ingredients should be small, so they cook quickly; big hunks and chunks won’t cook fast enough to keep up with the crust
- Fillings should be room temperature or else they will heat up the crust and the result will be soggy
- Don't overfill hand pies, or they'll burst at the seams. Some oozing is good, bursting not so much
- For best results, freeze the unbaked hand pies for 20 minutes before baking. This firms the fat in the crust back up and the result will be flakier
- If you have more willpower than most, freeze the unbaked pies for up to three months and then bake them straight out of the freezer (do not pass go, do not collect $200) but add an extra five or ten minutes to the cooking time
- And most importantly, those little beauties just came out of a steaming hot oven. Let hand pies cool for at least 10 minutes before eating. It’s hot in there!
Summer Captured in a Hand Pie, Blueberry Hand Pie
- 6 ounces flour
- 4 ounces butter/fat
- 1-2 ounces ice water
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups blueberries (about 10 oz.)
- 1 zest of one lemon
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- ¼ cup sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 large egg, whisked with 1 teaspoon milk
- 1 tablespoon raw sugar
- 1 batch sweet pie crust
- Combine the flour, salt, and butter in a mixing bowl (I like to freeze the butter and use a box grater or wide Microplane to grate the butter into the flour- it’s almost already perfect size and there’s less opportunity to warm up the butter with your hands) – you can use a mixer or a food processor for this step too but more dishes to clean!
- Add just enough water so the dough comes together; start with one ounce only add more if you need too. If you work the dough too hard it will develop too much gluten and become tough.
- Shape the dough into two rectangles of equal size (best to weigh the full piece of dough and divide) and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes before rolling to full size needed for recipe.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Roll out dough on a floured surface to a 15x12 inch rectangle. Cut into 12 rectangles.
- Toss blueberries, lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. Brush edges of rectangles with water; mound some blueberries in the center section of six of the rectangles. Top the unfilled rectangle on top of the filled rectangle and press the edges to seal.
- Place on a parchment lined baking sheet, brush with egg wash and sprinkle with raw sugar. Cut slits in tops. Bake hand pies, rotating sheet halfway through the baking time until juices are bubbling, and pastry is golden brown, about 20-25 minutes (juices will run onto the parchment paper – this is a good thing!).
- Serve warm or at room temperature.