Why am I obsessed with these? I don't know. Maybe it's because I love miniature food, or maybe it's those peanut butter and jelly things, or maybe it's because the lovely Nicole Lang talks about them all the time and I'm jealous. But at any rate, I've been desperate to try making them FOR EV AH and I finally got my chance on Thanksgiving. Since I was flying in the same day, I didn't have time to do anything fancy. So I went for classic apple pie. And they were freaking delicious. If I do say so myself.

Apple Cinnamon Hand Pies

Pie dough
Pastry flour* 1 lb 4 oz
Butter, cold 14 oz
Water, cold 6 oz
Salt 2 t
Sugar 1 oz (even if you're not making a sweet pie, this will help give the crust a nice color)
*all-purpose works too, but it seems to absorb more water, so you might have to increase the quantity of water a bit.


1 Chop the butter into chunks and chill it along with the water. You want this to be very cold. Working in a cooler room will help you out too.
2 Sift the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
3 Rub the cold butter into the dry ingredients with your fingers until it is about the size of halved walnuts. You can also use a food processor or a pastry blender for this, but doing it with your hands is so much more FUN
4 Add the cold water in a well. Reserve a little; if the mixture is too dry as you're mixing, add the rest.
5 Mix just until the dough comes together. It will be a little floury and look kinda crappy but don't keep kneading it! Put. the. dough. down.
6 Flatten into a disk, cover in plastic, and chill, at least 30–60 minutes. While it's resting you can make the filling:

Apple filling
Apples, sliced* 2 lbs
Butter 1 oz
Sugar 3 oz

Cold water 2 oz
Cornstarch .75 oz

Sugar 3.5 oz
Salt 1/5 t
Cinnamon 1 1/2 t
Ground ginger 1 t
Nutmeg 1/4 t
Lemon juice 2 t
Butter .25 oz
*some apples are better than others; you want ones that have plenty of acidity and hold their shape well when cooked. I used granny smith and they were perfect. I peeled them, but you don't have to.

1 Sauté the apples in the first quantity of butter until slightly soft. Add the sugar as they cook to draw out the juices.
2 Make a slurry with the cold water and the starch. Add to the apples and bring to a boil. Cook until thickened.
3 Remove from the heat. Taste and add the second quantity of sugar if needed. Add the remaining ingredients and cool. If you fill the pies while the filling is still hot you'll melt the butter and annoy yourself, so just wait.

Forming the pies

1 Once your dough is nice and firm, get it out and knead it just a couple of times to bring it together.
2 Roll it out to about 1/8" thick. Cut circles (mine were about 5" in diameter; I just used a bowl that was handy for tracing purposes).
3 Add a bit of filling in the middle of the circles and fold them in half, sealing the edges with a little water and then pressing them with a fork. Re-rolling this dough will make it kind of tough, but you can use the scraps to make funny-shaped hand pies if you want.
4 Egg wash them and sprinkle with a little coarse sugar if you want.
5 Bake at about 400 degrees until golden brown.

and i had to move to illinois to make my first pecan pie.

Despite my busy and exciting life of screwing up pie dough and going to bed at 8pm, I have found a little bit of time to start exploring Chicago. "Chicago" meaning all the places within a mile of my house that serve alcohol, caffeine, or brunch. This place is one of my favorite spots so far to spend my nonexistent disposable income, mostly because of these:



Peanut butter and jelly handpies!! As in, little pockets of PIE DOUGH filled with PB&J and then FRIED, and served to you with their insides all warm and gooey. I am a woman obsessed. I actually DREAMT of these the other night. A little sad, maybe, but at least I am easy to please, right?

The rest of Handlebar's menu, especially for brunch, is equally amazing, but we won't talk about the fact that I preceded fried pie with a ginormous bowl of vegan biscuits and gravy.

Handlebar
2311 W North Ave
Chicago, IL 60647
(773) 384-9546

Our last class before our exam was based around pie and tart dough. While part of me would like to continue the myth that pie crust from scratch is a laborious and easily-effed-up affair, especially because I over-baked one crust and thoroughly mangled the other, it really is quite easy to make. And even if, like mine, it doesn't look so perfect, it will still taste good. Just call it "rustic" and be done with it. SO DO NOT BE AFRAID MY FRIENDS, GO FORTH AND MAKE YOURSELF SOME PIE:

Pâte sucrée
This crust is sweet, good for dessert tarts, and super forgiving. You can re-roll it, patch holes, even make cookies with the scraps. And no chilled butter required.

7.5 oz softened butter
3 oz confectioner's sugar
1/3 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 oz eggs, beaten
12 oz flour (pastry if you have it)

Cream the butter and sugar to a paste in a mixer. (It should be toothpaste consistency- not til it's fluffy.)
Add the eggs gradually and then add the sifted dry ingredients. Mix just until it comes together nicely.
Flatten the dough into a disk and chill for at least 30 minutes. Then roll it out, drape into your pie tin, and let chill again.
Bake at 350 til GOLDEN DELICIOUS.