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Blackberry-Saskatoon Hand Pies

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These pies are even more delicious than they are beautiful, and although they eponymously beg to be eaten by hand, they’re also tremendous served warm with a scoop of ice cream and eaten with a fork. The dough is a pie crust/pastry hybrid, similar to a kolachy (or a rugelach). Its flavor, flakiness, and exterior crunch is like pie crust, but its interior texture is softer than pie crust and more like a dense pastry. I’m filling these pies with blackberries and saskatoons, but you can use any pie filling.

Ingredients for 16^[a] squares:

¼ cup whole wheat flour^[b]
3¾ cups AP flour, plus more for rolling
1½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
2 Tbs granulated sugar (optional)
2 cups cold unsalted butter, cut into ½” cubes
1 cup cold sour cream
2 cups of pie filling, (chilled)^[c]
1 large egg, beaten
4 Tbs demerara sugar
¾ cup powdered sugar (optional)
1 Tbs + 1½ tsp water (optional)

How to do it:

1. Whisk the wheat and AP flour, salt, baking powder, (and granulated sugar) in a large mixing bowl. Use a pastry cutter to work in the butter, leaving most of it in large, pea-sized pieces.
2. Stir in the sour cream until combined. (Take a moment at this point to get out the things you’re about to need before you get your hands full of dough: a spoon for the flour, a rolling pin, and a ruler or tape measure.) Use your hands (in the bowl) to bring the dough together.
3. Turn the dough out, pat it into a rough log, and divide into two equal pieces. Wrap one of the pieces and place it in the refrigerator. Roll the other piece it into an 8″ x 10″ rectangle, rotating and flipping it and dusting it with flour every so often to ensure that it doesn’t stick to the work surface. Give both sides a final dusting, and then, starting with a shorter end, fold it in three like a business letter.
4. Roll it again into an 8″ x 10″ rectangle. Fold it again in three.
5. Wrap the dough, and chill for at least 30 minutes. Meanwhile, repeat these steps with the other half of the dough.

ASSEMBLY

1. Line two baking sheets with Silpats (or parchment).
2. Roll one of the dough halves into a 14″ x 14″ square. Take your time. Be precise. Cut pieces from here and put them over there as you go, if necessary, so that you wind up with a perfect, straight-edged square.^[d]
3. Carefully mark off 3½” segments on all four sides of the square. Use a straight edge^[e] to cut the dough into sixteen 3½” squares. If necessary, loosen them from the work surface.
4. Place a heaping tablespoon of filling in the center of 8 of the squares, and spread the filling around so that it comes about a quarter-inch to the edges of each square. Brush some of the beaten egg along the edges of each filled square.
5. Cut a small vent into each of the remaining 8 squares.
6. Top each filled square with a vented square, and press along the edges with the tines of a fork to seal.
7. Brush the top of each pie with beaten egg, and sprinkle generously with demerara sugar.^[f] Transfer the pies to one of the prepared baking sheets.
8. Slide the sheet into the refrigerator and let the pies cool down for 15 minutes, while you preheat oven to 425ºF.
9. Bake the pies for 22 minutes, until they’re a light golden brown. Remove them from the oven, and let cool for 20 minutes before moving to wire racks.
10. You could serve the pies at this point.^[g] Or, you could allow them to cool completely, and then glaze them. To do that, mix the powdered sugar and water in a small bowl. Stir thoroughly and for a long time, until there are no lumps whatsoever. Place a sheet of wax paper under the rack to catch drips. Pour the glaze over the pies to create a nice, even, thorough coating, while avoiding the vents. Give the pies additional coats of glaze, if desired, using a rubber spatula to gather up the glaze that dripped onto the wax paper and re-using it, if necessary.
11. While this batch of squares is baking/cooling/glazing, repeat all assembly steps with the other half of the dough.
12. Store pies, lightly wrapped in wax paper,^[h] at room temperature for a couple of days; freeze for longer storage.

Notes:

1. Sixteen hand pies require as much filling as a one 9-inch pie. It’d be easy to halve this dough recipe, but it might be less easy to cut a filling recipe in half. If you want to make only eight squares, I recommend that you make the full amount of filling – especially if you’re using a fruit filling – and put the leftover to use with ice cream, yogurt; on toast, pancakes, or waffles; or on shortcakes with whipped cream.
2. You could substitute AP flour for the wheat flour. I think a touch of wheat flour gives the pastry a richer flavor.
3. Note that I’m filling these pies with a finished filling. They won’t spend long enough in the oven to properly cook a raw filling. I suggest that the filling be chilled simply because it’s easier to work with that way.

4. I know that rolling dough is intimidating for many people. The two most common problems are easy to avoid. 1) The dough might stick to the work surface. To avoid this, rotate and flip the dough frequently. Roll it just a few times in each of four directions (north, south, east, west), then carefully lift opposing edges and rotate the dough clockwise a quarter-turn. If the dough seems to want to cling to the work surface, abort the procedure. Instead, take a tiny bit of flour and use your palm to spread it all over the surface of the dough. The dough by nature should feel slightly tacky, but after this flour treatment, it should feel smooth and not tacky in the least. It takes only a tiny bit of flour to accomplish this; don’t use more than you need to. Then, run a straight edge underneath it. A bench scraper is good for this, as is a thin, non-beveled ruler. Finally, flip the dough and give it the same kind of dusting of flour that you gave the other side, and then continue rolling. 2) The dough might become too warm to handle. Although the dough is soft, it should hold its shape. If it starts to feel too delicate – as if it’s melting from the heat of your fingers when you touch it – then you need to return it to the refrigerator for about 20 minutes. How to avoid overheating the dough? Keep it cool in the kitchen when rolling dough. Turn on the air conditioner. There are hollow, plastic rolling pins that you can fill with ice water; try one of those. Believe it or not, a fully-chilled bottle of white wine makes a really cool, makeshift rolling pin.
5. I have a simple, thin, non-beveled, metal ruler. It’s perfect for shaping and cutting dough. It’s important that you have nice straight edges and crisp corners for these pies. If you don’t, some – if not most – of your squares aren’t going to turn out to be nice looking. Hint: use the best-looking squares for the tops.
6. You can substitute granulated sugar for the demerara.
7. These pies are perfect with a single coat of glaze. I actually love them without the glaze, too. Without the glaze, the intensity of the fruit and the richness of the pastry are marked and play off one another. The pies seem simple, straightforward, and dare I say wholesome? However, even though they do contain a considerable amount of sugar, they don’t come off as tasting “sweet.” My opinion is that we have too high a tolerance for sugar; we should fight against this. But if you don’t want to start that battle here, the glaze is all you need to move the dial into the “sweet” category without crossing over into “sugary.” More coats of glaze (or a thicker glaze), and they’ll quickly become as sugary as Pop-Tarts – and I don’t mean that as a compliment. A single coat of glaze seems to bring the whole pie together and balance the filling with the crust, elevating it from lovely to heavenly.
8. If you store leftover pies in an airtight container, the crust will loose its flakiness and subtle crunch, and become very soft and chewy. A clear step down, but not so far that you wouldn’t still devour them.

Blackberry-Saskatoon Hand Pies

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! In doing research for this post, I relied on King Arthur Flour and Martha Stewart. Thank you, Kesor. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything.

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