Individual Pies

Posted: February 19, 2010 | Author: Bakezilla | Filed under: Bakezilla | 3 Comments »

So, I have some very unsurprising things to say as a prelude to this post. One, is that my beloved baking Grammy used to make me and my brother individual mini-pies with our initials on them whenever she made a big grown-up pie, because, as I have mentioned before, my Grammy is my hero. Secondly, as I’ve mentioned before, a few months ago, I made cookies on a first date. And, because truly this is the best romantic gesture I’ve ever made, we just celebrated our first Valentine’s Day together. So, for that, I decided to make individual heart-shaped pies to celebrate. I hear that in England, they have such a thing called hand-pies, but that they contain dry, ground beef inside, instead of delicious, sugary buttery fruit.

First, make the dough. Here’s the thing about dough. It is really difficult to make it so it’s not too dry or not too gooey. I personally prefer things to be a little gooier rather than a little drier, so I put in a little extra liquid. This also makes it just a little easier to manage.

You’ll need 2.5 cups of flour, 1 tsp salt, 2-3 tsp sugar, 2 sticks of (unsalted!) butter, cut up into little pieces, and about 2/3 cup milk (I recommend pouring it over ice).

Mix up the dry ingredients and butter, either using a food processor or pastry cutter, until it looks like a course meal. Add the milk and mix until it seems manageable. Shape into a disk and refrigerate for a while, at least an hour.

Then, make the filling. I’d recommend using firmer fruit, I used pear, but you could go for apple, too as a base, and I added in some blueberries. So, chop up about 2 cups worth of a firmer fruit (I used 3 pears), and then around 3/4 cup of something else… raspberries, strawberries, in my case, blueberries… whatever strikes your fancy/is in your kitchen/is on sale…

Toss the hard fruit in a tbs or so of lemon juice. Heat up about 2 tbs of butter (ps. I love butter), and put in the hard fruit, and gradually add 3-4 tbs of sugar, and cook about 5 minutes. At the end of cooking, add in some nutmeg. And perhaps cinnamon. Feel free to get a little more creative if that’s your thing… Allspice? Cloves? Boundless possibilities. Put this delicious, gooey fruit in a bowl and toss in the berries.

Preheat your oven to 350. Roll out the dough. If flakiness is super important to you, refrigerate the chilled dough for a while after you roll it out.

Cut the dough into desired shape. I did this the ghetto way. I got some card stock, made a heart in a roughly 4 inch shape, and traced it with a knife. I made 6 hearts. (Whatever you do, make an even number of shapes). On one half of these shapes, brush on beaten egg. Then, top that half of the shapes with your filling, try to equally distribute it. Then, carefully place the other dough shapes on top. Seal them together with a fork.

Put them on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and make for 35-40 minutes. If you want to be all fancy, and you can find it, sprinkle them with sanding sugar first.

These pies definitely contributed to a lovely Valentine’s Day, and I hope the first of many…