These delicious homemade morsels are easy to grab and go.
First appeared in edible Bozeman’s Summer 2022 edition.
Fruit is one of the joys of summer, and when I’m in the mood for a special dessert, I think pie. Hand pies are simpler to make and easier to eat than full pies. Plus, you can take them on a road trip, hike, bike, or picnic, whether on land or lake.
You can either cook the filling or keep it raw if you don’t want to stand at the stove; after baking, you can hardly tell them apart. Bake in the evening if you want to keep from warming your house on a hot summer day.
Here, we turn blueberries into a simple filling. Other fruits that are great for hand pies include raspberries, blackberries, huckleberries, pitted and halved cherries, and even sliced peaches and nectarines (which pair amazingly with blueberries, by the way).
Author: Amy Andrews, first appeared in edible Bozeman’s Summer 2022 edition
Ingredients
For filling
2cupsblueberriesfresh or frozen
¼cupgranulated sugar
2tablespoonsfresh lemon juice
1teaspoonfresh lemon zest
2teaspoonscornstarch
For pie dough
2½cupsall-purpose flour
½teaspoonkosher salt
12tablespoonsunsalted buttercut into chunks
4tablespoonssolid vegetable shortening
1tall glass of ice wateryou will use 6 to 8 tablespoons, as needed, for the dough to come together
For egg wash
1egg
2tablespoonsmilk
Raw sugarfor sprinkling
Instructions
For filling
You can either cook the filling or keep it raw. Both methods make a wonderful pie filling — you can hardly tell them apart after baking the pie. Do you want to stand at the stove or not? If you take time to cook the filling and have extra, consider stirring it into yogurt, which is delicious.
If you wish to cook the filling, combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and set over moderate heat. Cook, stirring, until berries pop and sauce thickens, about 5 minutes. If you plan to keep it raw, simply mix ingredients together in a bowl or jar. I store the raw filling overnight in the refrigerator, which helps thicken the juices, especially when using frozen berries.
For pie dough
To make the dough, use a food processor or cut butter and shortening into flour using a pastry blender — or, as my grandmother did, using two table knives. Add flour and salt into food processor bowl. Add butter and shortening, and pulse until mixture is uniformly crumbly. From the glass of ice water, measure out 4 tablespoons and sprinkle over the crumbly dough. Pulse a few times to incorporate. If mixture seems dry, add 2 more tablespoons of ice water and pulse just until the mixture begins to form a ball.
For pies
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and pat into a rough disk a couple inches thick. Cut in half, then flatten and round each half into 2 smaller disks, both about an inch thick. Wrap each in plastic or parchment and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Roll the dough out quite thinly on a lightly floured surface, and use a yogurt container or bowl about 5 inches in diameter as a guide for cutting out circles with a knife. Aim to get 4 circles from each dough disk. Cut smaller decorative shapes from the scraps, rerolling as necessary; these can decorate the pies. Roll each circle to be a bit thinner and bigger, about 6 inches in diameter.
Transfer each circle to a parchment paper- or Silpat-lined sheet pan. Spoon 2 heaping tablespoons of filling into the center, fold over into half-moons, and crimp edges with a fork. Top with decorative cutouts, brush each hand pie with egg wash, cut steam vents (if you use fresh berries, this will keep filling explosions to a minimum), and sprinkle with raw sugar. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until crust begins to brown. Let cool a few minutes on pan, then transfer to a rack to cool completely.
Notes
You can store the uncooked dough rounds in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. Any longer and the flour will start to discolor. You also can freeze the dough rounds, well wrapped in a freezer bag, for up to 2 months. Just before you’re ready to use them, set the frozen rounds in the refrigerator overnight or until they are pliable.
Black plastic cooking utensils recently have garnered national attention for their potentially toxic characteristics. These tools are accessible, easy to…
