I've been meaning to recipe test some new hand pies for fun! I've been so busy lately with a recent apprenticeship I've taken on at the bakery down the street from me that I've lost time for recipe writing and testing! But not today!!
Today my bake shift was from 4am to 1pm so I came home and went straight for my ingredients! I know, I'll very likely crash any minute now and have to be in bed by 8:30PM in order to wake up and do it all over again. Ha!
I had some blackberries in the freezer cause they were ripening too fast so wanted to use them up. I figured I would try some new combos since I also was drying some fresh organic lavender that I found at the farmer's market last week. It's so fun just picking up ingredients in my pantry and seeing where they can lead me! For this recipe, I felt like a small hit of vanilla extract really helps round out the tart blackberries and floral dried lavender buds.
I definitely love how these little guys came out! Make some for a loved one or just cause you love yourself! ;) Here are some more pics for the assembling process since it can get a little confusing. Enjoy!
Roll out your dough discs to be a little bigger than what you cut them at. So they're about 1/8 inch thick.
Apply a thick outside coating of milk on the edges of one piece. Add your filling.
Cover and lightly seal filling into the dough discs.
Cut into the shape of a heart then crimp the edges with a fork.
Brush with egg wash and add sanding sugar. Voila! Into the oven they go!! :D
Out of the oven they come with this GOLDEN boootiful glow!!
Blackberry Lavender Love Pies
Makes 12 x heart hand pies (using a 3" cutter for the dough)
Dough Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 cups (357g) of all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup of butter (225g) very cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
- 3/4 cup of water of ice water (watch as you add it)
Filling Ingredients:
- 4 cups frozen blackberries
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
- 2 tablespoon dried lavender buds
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- pinch of kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons corn starch, dissolved in blackberry juices
Other:
- Egg wash (1 egg + 1 tablespoon milk or heavy cream)
- 3 tablespoons Sanding Sugar
Make the dough:
1. Fill a measuring 1 cup with water and drop ice cubs into it and set aside. Put cubed butter into freezer while you measure out the rest of your dries.
2. Place 2 ½ cups flour, 1 teaspoon sugar, 2 teaspoons of salt into food processor and pulse to incorporate. Remove butter from freezer, cut into cubes and add into processor.
3. Pulse to cut the butter until mostly are sizes of peas. Start drizzling ice-cold water into the mixture slowly and pulse the processor as you add the water. You will use about 3/4 of a cup or a little under. Just be careful as you get to the end. Stop pulsing once all the water is added. Use a rubber spatula to gather the dough together.
4. Once you have large clumps and the dough can be pushed together with your hands, gather and knead the dough together into one large disc. Divide dough in half, shape them both into a disc then wrap with plastic wrap. Place into the freezer to chill quickly.
Make the filling:
5. In a medium saucepan, add all your ingredients EXCEPT for the cornstarch. Put on a medium high heat and cook for about 4 minutes until it's boiling. Stir occasionally. Don't want to over cook the berries or they'll all breakdown so keep an eye on them!
6. Once there is some extra liquid from the berries in the pan, take about 2 tablespoons of it out in a small bowl and add your cornstarch. Stir so that it is a thick liquid. Doing this will help avoid clumps of cornstarch in your filling. Add back into the pot and stir. Cook for about 30 seconds then remove from heat.
7. Place filling into a separate bowl and into the fridge to cool down. Go back and stir once in a while to cool the filling down faster. If you're not in a rush, place on the counter and let it come to room temp before you put it into your fridge.
Roll out your dough:
8. While your filling is cooling, roll out your dough into a 1/4 inch thick. Using a 3inch biscuit cutter or glass, cut rounds out of your dough. Collect scraps and carefully re-roll them out to create more dough to cut out. I ended up with 24-26 total dough rounds. Place on a half-sheet and into the freezer to firm up before further working with them.
Assemble your hand pies!
9. Grab TWO dough discs and roll them out to about 1/8 of an inch thick. With a little dish of whole milk, brush the edges of one piece of dough leaving the center clean.
10. Place about 1 1/2 Tablespoons of filling into the center of the first disc. Taking the other dough disc, place directly on top of the dough with the filling and gently press down the edges where the milk is so it seals the filling into the dough.
11. Using a paring knife or pizza cutter, cut a heart shaped out of the little hand pie. Using a fork, crimp the edges down to further seal in the filling. Place on another parchment lined baking sheet and back into the freezer to freeze for at least 1HR to whenever you're ready to bake the pies off.
12. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper and space out 6 hand pies per sheet.
13. When oven is heated, take your egg wash and apply a light brush of it on each hand pie. Top each brushed pie with sanding sugar. Using a pairing knife, cut two little holes for ventilation.
14. Place into heated oven and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown. Filling may ooze out which isn't a bad thing. :)
15. Remove from oven and let it sit on the sheet for 3 minutes to cool. Place on a cooling rack to finish cooling. After 15 minutes you can eat and enjoy!!