Strawberry Rhubarb Hand Pies

These were the most beautiful looking and fragrant strawberries at the market today. Spring is finally here! And the rhubarb were deep red and lovely. I didn’t want to make and entire pie so I decided to make hand pies with the fruit instead. The easy thing about hand pies is literally that you can take any pie crust recipe you use with any fruit filling recipe you use and make the hand-pies in their shapes instead of an entire pie. The pie crust I use is an adaptation I have made to a Martha Stewart Pate Brisee recipe. The fruit filling is a basic fruit filling that I came up with. The pies turned out to be delicious. I can’t wait to make another batch soon.

Strawberry Rhubarb Hand-Pies

Sweet Pastry Dough

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour

1 tsp Salt

3 tsp Sugar

2 Stick Cold Butter

1/4 - 1/2 cup Ice Cold Water

1 Egg separated (for egg wash)

1 tbls milk (for egg wash)

Demerara sugar (for dusting)

Directions

Prior to making, put flour and two sticks of butter in the freezer for about 15-30 minutes. When ready, in a large food processor add flour, salt, and sugar and mix. Cut butter into small pieces and add butter to processor. Pulse until mix turns into pearl sized beads, it will have a sandy look to it. Then, slowly add the water a few drops at a time until the mix turns into a cohesive mass in the processor. Do not add any more water at this point.

Take dough out of processor and form into a disk shape. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least a half an hour and up to a day.

Strawberry Rhubarb Filling

Ingredients

3 cups cut Rhubarb  (about 6-7 whole rhubarb stalk)

3 cups cut Strawberry (about 16 ounces/1 lb strawberries)

1/4 - 1/2 cup Sugar

1/4 cup Cornstarch

1 tbls Orange Juice

Pinch Cinnamon

Pinch ground Nutmeg

Directions

Slice Rhubarb lengthwise and cut into small pieces that total three cups worth. Cut strawberries into 3 cups worth (You don’t want the pieces to be that large as they will need to fit in the hand-pies). Toss both into a large bowl. Add sugar, cornstarch, orange juice, cinnamon and nutmeg to bowl (Truly use a pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg. You want them to add depth to the flavor of the filling but not overpower it). Mix for a couple of minutes with a spatula so that all the ingredients are combined and fruit is well coated. The sugar/cornstarch will look clear and gooey on the fruit. Put aside for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, pour the entire bowl into a large strainer to discard of the excess liquids that have settled. Let the fruit mix sit in the strainer for 10 minutes.

Making the Hand-Pies

Preheat oven at 350°. Crack an egg putting egg white in one bowl and egg yolk in another bowl. Add tbls of milk to egg yolk and whisk. Roll out the pastry dough. At this point, it is up to you what shape hand pies you want - semi-circles, circles, squares, rectangles. Whatever your desired shape is, cut dough accordingly (It’s very important that the dough stays cold. So if when you are working with the dough it gets warm and too soft to work with, stick it back in the fridge for a little and then take out and continue). On each cut out, brush egg white on edges of pastry. Fill each pastry with a dollop of fruit filling and fold pastry over in half to seal. You can either seal with a fork, folds, or other techniques you use. Brush the top of the hand-pie with the egg wash (yolk and milk) and sprinkle with demerara sugar. Put on a baking sheet and refrigerate all the pies for 30 minutes. After thirty minutes, take out and bake for 30 minutes. Let cool on wire rack before serving.

Serve warm or room temperature with whipped cream. Enjoy!