“Easy-as-pie” cherry hand pies
Updated in April 2016 just for you all lovely folks:
There are those days, you know. Yep, there are those days when you simply need pie. There are days when you don’t have a lot of time to make pie, even though you need pie. There are days when you don’t want an entire pie, also, just a piece or two.
Perhaps today is one of those days.
In the summer when my daughter and I used to bake for our local farmer’s market, we would make armloads of these hand pies. People love these babies. They’re the perfect size for two people if you’re generous with the size (and we are) although sometimes a person will buy one or two with that greedy gleam in his eye, indicating that he plans to go home and pour himself a cup of coffee, or a big glass of milk, add a generous scoop of ice cream, and make his supper out of this one of these hand pies.
This happens, it really does, and it’s not my position to judge. Especially since I may have just made my lunch out of one of them, with a large green smoothie perhaps, to ease my nutrition conscience.
It’s a free country. 🙂 Pie for lunch, whyever not?
Aren’t these just beautiful? Don’t you need one?
Anyway. These hand pies have everything going for them–they’re delicious (of course), you can fill them with whatever filling you choose (we usually go with rhubarb, or cherry, or apple) and they’re portable. And, they are easy-peasy to make. I promise! You simply stir together your filling (3 ingredients) and then you stir together your pastry (four ingredients), and then you roll out the pastry into circles, add the filling, crimp, brush, sprinkle, and you’re done! The hardest part of the entire recipe is waiting for them to bake (and fending off the wild-eyed maniacal folks who will beat a path to the kitchen when they smell pie baking).
But I think you’re up for that. You can do it. I know you can.
Here’s a sheet full of these lovelies ready to go into the oven. I brush them with milk, and then sprinkle them liberally with sugar, to get the lovely sparkly pastry that I love.
But enough with the pie chitter-chatter. Here’s the recipe.
- Filling:
- 1 1/4 cups sugar
- 3 Tb cornstarch
- 5 1/2 cups fresh or frozen* unsweetened pitted tart red cherries
- Pastry:
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup butter
- 1/3 cup lard
- 8 to 10 Tb cold water
- First, stir together sugar and cornstarch.
- Add cherries; gently toss until coated and let stand for 15 minutes or until a syrup forms, stirring occasionally.
- (If using *frozen cherries, let stand 45 minutes or until fruit is partially thawed but still icy.)
- Now, make your pastry: stir together dry ingredients, and then with your mixer or a pastry blender cut in shortening until pieces are pea-sized.
- Sprinkle the water on your mixture,1 Tablespoon at a time, and toss with a fork until all flour mixture is moistened.
- Roll a ball about the size of a tennis ball (or smaller, if you like smaller pies) out into a circle about 10″ across, on a well-floured surface.
- Put approximately 2/3 cup filling on half of each pastry circle, folding the other half over and crimping the edges (see photo). Place pies on parchment paper lined cookie sheet and brush with milk, and then sprinkle with sugar.
- Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until golden brown and crackly. Yum!
Now go, Gentle Reader, and make some pie!
*big flaky pie-crumbed hugs*