Happy Saturday Everyone! This afternoon we decided to make some apple hand pies with our orchard’s Macintosh apples. We were inspired during a raucous freezer cleaning session where we came across a disk of leftover pie dough from last season (Sitting Pretty Peach Galette). If you don’t have a squirreled away frozen crust in your freezer, here’s our basic pie dough recipe:
Ingredients:
Dough:
2 1/2 cups (315 g) flour
1 tablespoon (15 g) sugar
1 teaspoon (5 g) table salt
2 sticks (8 ounces, 225 grams) very cold, unsalted butter
¾ cup ice cold water (put ice cubes in it but dont add them to the dough)
For the dough, combine flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Cut in cold butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in water, a tablespoon at a time, until mixture easily forms a ball. You may need a little more or less. Divide dough into two pieces, wrap each in plastic and refrigerate for an hour.
Now for the hand pies!
Before we start, let’s talk about these little pockets of gold. Hand pies are the perfect food for children and adults alike! They are incredibly cute, delicious, and the perfect size for snacking. Sometimes it just isn’t convenient to sit down, have a big slice of pie on a plate, dirty a dish and a fork and listen to your kid brother tell you why he’s renouncing all meat and becoming a gypsy. For those times – reach for a hand pie.
Ingredients:
Pie Dough Recipe
Filling:
4 Macintosh Apples
1 tsp lemon juice
1/4 cup sugar
2 Tablespoon AP Flour
pinch of salt
1 tsp cinnamon
dash of allspice, nutmeg, ginger, mace (optional)
Egg Wash
1 egg
1 tsp water
pinch of salt
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit
1) Peel, core, and dice apples into 1/4 inch pieces. In a medium bowl, mix apple pieces with lemon juice, sugar, flour, salt, cinnamon, and spices. Set aside.
2) Remove pie dough from fridge and on a lightly floured surface, roll out to 1/4 inch thick.
3) Using a round cutter about 3 inches in diameter, cut circles out of the dough. If you don’t have a cutter, a large drinking glass will work.
4) Remove excess dough and brush each circle lightly, with egg wash.
5) Spoon 1 teaspoon of filling into the center of each circle.
6) Fold circles in half and seal using a fork dipped in flour. The flour will help prevent the fork from sticking.
7) Place hand pies on a sheet tray lined in parchment, brush tops with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar in the raw.
8) Using a small paring knife, pierce the top layer of crust on each pie to allow steam to escape while baking.
9) Place tray in the oven and bake for 25 minutes or until lightly browned.
10) When pies are done, remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack.
Enjoy warm with vanilla ice cream or room temperature on the go!
