Apple Hand Pies

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Autumn to me means apple pie. I’m really a sucker for a good pie… but apple pie is by far the quintessential fall treat for me. It’s totally cliche.

Lately, in an effort to have on hand a healthy after-school snack for my kids and still fill a craving for apple pies I’ve been baking little apple hand pies. Who can resist?!? Portable, tasty, cute… YUM. These are labour intensive ... but I imagine if you make a big batch you can freeze them to have on hand (no pun intended!) as a quick snack.

The recipe below is a somewhat cobbled-together version of various apple pie recipes. If you have a favourite recipe then go ahead and use that.

Also, I’m not going to go into pastry recipes—just use a pastry recipe that you like and go from there, rolling the pastry out and cutting into rounds. Try and use a pastry that is not too flaky, or your little hand pies won’t hold together too well.

Recipe
2 lbs apples, peeled, cored, diced
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tbsp. lemon zest

Start with about two pounds of baking apples (I used the Galas from my CSA). You can use a mix of apples for a mix of textures if you want.

Peel, core, and dice them. The smaller you dice the apples the easier it will be to fill your hand pies.

Mix the apples with the brown sugar, cinnamon, and lemon zest (this is the secret ingredient!) and cook gently for about 10-15 min., or until the apples are just a little soft. Doing this step will keep your handpies from getting soggy!

Spoon out the apple mixture onto your pastry rounds—leave the juice produced from the cooking process behind. It’s sad, I know… but if you don’t want soggy pies then you have to say goodbye to the juice.

Fold your pastry rounds in half, wet the edges, and press together. I used the tines of a fork to do this.

Bake in a 350F oven for about 20min. If you wanted to, you could brush your handpies with a little egg to make the crust shiny, but this is purely aesthetic.

Enjoy!