Cherry Hand Pies
Post update: I used these Mason Jar lids (affiliate link) to cut the pastry dough. They also work great as mini tart pans as seen in this How to Make Mini Fruit Pie With Mason Jar Lids video!
It's Secret Recipe Club Reveal Day - each month, we members get assigned a fellow food blogger and are charged to make one of his/her recipes. In turn, someone is assigned to each one of us and we all reveal on the same day our mystery bloggers along with some mouthwatering recipes (as seen in thumbnails below.)
[bctt tweet="Cherry Hand Pies - fun to make and built-in portion control! @tspbasil" via="no"]
This month, I had Jess @ Life's Simple Measures. Once I started stalking exploring her blog, I couldn't stop. It was such fun to learn more about her - she got engaged this year to her long time college boyfriend (wedding in September 2014) and just moved to Chicago from Omaha a week or so ago (I believe the day of this reveal is her first day at her new job - good luck, Jess!)
And man, can this gal cook. I wanted to make her Blueberry Pie Bars and Mama's Challah Bread and Brazilian Cheese Puffs and so many more. Plus, you must check out the gorgeous cupcakes she made for a wedding reception recently.
In the end, Jess's Cherry Hand Pies won out because a) cherries are my absolute favorite fruit and b) they are in season now (albeit a way way WAY too short season.) (I came close to making these Soft Pretzel Bites for my post, being a Philly gal who loves her pretzels. But those will be for another day...)
I made some tweaks to the pies, including adding in some lemon zest and almond extract to the cherries. I also used some white whole wheat flour and butter with coconut oil in place of the shortening. And I opted for a turbinado sugar topping in place of the simple icing.
Turns out Mason jar lids make excellent mini pie cutters (especially for tattooed 6-year-olds to handle.)
Cherry Hand Pies – Secret Recipe Club
- Yield: about 16 hand pies. 1x
Description
Celebrate the summer cherry harvest with these perfectly portioned cherry hand pies. Or swap in your favorite summer time fruit.
Ingredients
For cherry filling:
- 2 pounds (4 cups) cherries, pitted and quartered
- ÂĽ cup sugar
- 3 tablespoons all purpose flour
- Zest of half of lemon
- â…› teaspoon almond extract
- â…› teaspoon salt
For the dough:
- 1 â…” cup all purpose flour
- â…“ cup white whole wheat flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- â…› teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoons virgin coconut oil
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- Âľ cup nonfat milk
- Cooking spray
- Turbinado sugar
Instructions
- For the filling, in a small bowl, mix cherries, sugar, 3 tablespoons flour, lemon zest, almond extract and â…› teaspoon salt. Set aside.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- For the dough, in a large bowl, mix together flours, baking powder and â…› teaspoon salt. With pastry knife or your hands, mix in coconut oil and butter until dough becomes crumbly.
- Slowly mix in milk until dough starts to come together.
- On a floured surface, roll dough until it becomes a smooth dough ball. With rolling pin, roll out into â…“-inch thickness. Cut into 3-inch round circles and then roll each circle into about 5-inch circle (dough will be thin.)
- Place each circle on parchment paper on a cooking sheet. Spoon about 1 ½ tablespoons of cherry filling onto each circle. Fold over and seal edges. Spray with cooking spray and sprinkle with turbinado sugar.
- Bake for about 25 minutes or until dough becomes slightly golden brown. Cool slightly and serve.
Notes
The dietitian in me loves the built in "portion control" of hand pies and the foodie in me loves the versatility of being able to swap in whatever fresh fruit you'd like! You could also experiment with different fruit & herb/spice combos like peach & thyme, strawberry & basil, lemon & ginger, plum & lavender - endless possibilities.
Do you ever make mini or hand pies? What's your favorite summer pie?
My mum used to make me a 'special' pie all to myself. I LOVE hand pies. I make them healthier now, than my mum did and super quick. I use big spoons of fruit sweetened jam. Though I love inventing, when I make these pies I use traditional strawberry or marmalade jam. I made cherry scones for this month SRC, next time I need a pie I'll be trying cherry, maybe I'll go wild and add vegan chocolate chips!
Good SRC pick. wonderful photo's too!
Oooh - love the idea of adding chocolate chips next time! (And using jam when my favorite fruit is out of season 🙂
Love these. The sprinkling of turbinado sugar adds so much to the look of these. Great pick?
These look wonderful! Nice to see your little one helping! My son just saw these and said HE wants to make them! 🙂
My daughter is the same way - if she sees a photo of a kid cooking, she wants to jump in too. Let me know if he takes a crack at them!
yum, yum, yum, yum, yum!!
I'm saying the same thing about that delicious looking chili you cooked up 🙂
Oh, my! I am crazy over cherries and these hand pies look VERY scrumptious... Your daughter is so cute. She seems to enjoy cooking!
These is just absolutely something stunning about these hand pies! Love them and great choice!
I have always wanted to make my own handpies. Better get started 🙂 These look amazing!
Your hand pies sounds delicious and easy! I cant wait to make it for my family.
Love cherries, love pies (especially hand pies). These sound great!
What a great choice! Those cherry pies look amazing with that golden turbinado sugar on top. I really enjoyed checking out your blog this month and am definitely a new follower. 🙂 You have so many awesome recipes I want to make and I so appreciate the healthy spin. 🙂
Wow! These look awesome, beautiful pictures too! I definitely need to go out and get a cherry pitter! 🙂
A cherry pitter is a must 🙂 I have a hand-me-down from my grandma but I've seen a nifty one from OXO 🙂
I'd love to make a gluten-free version of these scrummy cherry hand pie! I'm not much of a pie crust maker, so I'm thinking of defrosting and using my "freezer staple" Whole Foods GF pie crust. I think this would be a fun cooking project to do with the kids too 🙂
Again, another food/cooking thing we share - I rarely make pie crust (that's what frozen crust are for!) Definitely get the kids involved - Mia actually thinks it's fun to pit the cherries...though that can get rather messy rather fast.
Hi Deanna,
So glad I stumbled across your blog on google+! Good choice with these pies. I have to say, my favourite fruit in desserts is probably apple, so when I try these I might try with apple and cinnamon for my own twist. Love the idea of a hand held, portable dessert. I was wondering, as you've used coconut oil does this affect the taste of the pastry? Because I am not sure coconut would marry well with every flavour.
Sita 🙂
Sita - thanks for stopping by - I look forward to checking out your blog! Great question about the coconut oil, it didn't have any "coconuty" flavor in the crust so I think you could use it for your apple cinnamon (sounds delicious!) hand pies or of course, swap in butter if you prefer.
I love cherry hand pies! Totally remind me of summers back on the east coast- we would make them all the time in the summer, my favorite treat!
So fun! I can't believe I've never ate them nor baked them until now 🙂 BTW, love your grilled plum & arugula salads and looking forward to part 2 🙂
Wow, your pies look beautiful! So glad to see you tried these out, I hope they turned out to your liking!
I absolutely LOVE the tweaks you made, like the almond extract, lemon zest, and turbinado sugar additions. Makes my mouth water!
Happy to bake with you, see you around next SRC!
what a fun link-up group concept! and what an awesome looking hand pie... oozy cherry and sugar topped! i can so justify this as a breakfast option...