Little Honey Almond Apple Hand Pies

These nice little hand pies are adapted from a recipe for mini pop tarts on the National Honey Board's website, which has as great variety of honey-related recipes. I did some fiddling with the recipe by adding a few thin slices of apple to the almond/honey filling and making them round instead of square.  Check out the original recipe for some great variations that include one for dark chocolate and another for spicy habanero (no lie!). 

Little Honey Almond Apple Hand Pies
For the pastry:
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose white flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter, chilled and cut into 1/4 inch cubes
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 (about) tablespoons ice water

Filling:
1/2 apple, peeled and very thinly sliced.  Toss with 1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 cup almonds
1/4 cup honey  
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
pinch of salt

For top of pastry:
pinch of sugar, optional

Whisk the flours and salt together. Cut in the chilled butter until it's the size of peas. (I did this in a food processor with a few quick pulses and then transferred it to a bowl.)  Sprinkle the olive oil over and toss to coat the flour as best you can.  A tablespoon at a time, sprinkle the water over the mixture, tossing with a fork and then, if you need a third tablespoon, your hands.  You want a firm by pliable dough that isn't too over worked (but don't be afraid to tell it who's boss!).  Form the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for 30 minutes.  

While dough chills, set the oven to 400 degrees. Place the almonds on an ungreased cookie sheet and put them in the oven.  Remove them from the oven when it reaches 400.  Chop the almonds in a food processor--the more finely you chop them, the more gooey the filling will be. Combine the almonds honey, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl.  

When dough has chilled for 30 minutes, roll out on a lightly floured surface to about 1/8th inch thickness (as thin as you can!).  The olive oil in the dough should make it fairly pliable.  Cut dough into 2 1/2 inch rounds. (I used a  beer glass.) You should get about 8 rounds from the first roll.  Place half of the rounds on the cookie sheet, top with about a tablespoon of almond/honey filling and two or three thin apple slices.  Place a dough round on top of the filling, pressing to cover the filling.  Use a fork to seal the top dough round with the bottom. Then use the fork to gently poke a few holes in the top of the pastry. Repeat with remaining pastry rounds.  Roll dough out again.  You should get at least two rounds and maybe four from this one.  If you like, you can brush the hand pies with water (or milk or half and half) and sprinkle with a little sugar.  

Bake for 15-20 minutes until the pastry has browned at the edges and is firm to the touch.  Cool on cookie sheets.  Makes about 10 hand pies.  

Robert and I each had two for dessert--and I'm just now noticing that another one has gone missing--a clear Robert endorsement!  They're not very big--but if we want to be honest with ourselves (and we do--well, at least most of the time), then one hand pie is probably what the daily portion-per-human should be. 

Honeyed Peach Pie Filling (for freezing)

I missed the "Peach Jam" at McConnell's Family Farm on Sunday, July 29, 2012 hosted by Slow Food Pittsburgh--but I've done a little stocking up on peaches for the winter on my own.  I made the filling for a peach pie, which I'll freeze and pull out one of those gloomy days in mid-November or beginning of February when we could use a little sweet peach sunshine.  I call it "Pop-in-the-Pan" Peach Filling because the idea is that you freeze the filling in a pie plate so that you can pop it right in pastry-lined pie pan, pop on a top crust and bake it without much fuss at all.  Great for unexpected company!  The recipe is fairly basic; you can try this with any pie filling you'd like--I've made blueberry and strawberry pies this way.  This recipe make filling for two pies.  You can double that if you have a lot of peaches (or cut it in half if you want to make only one pie).  Oh, and you could just go ahead and make a peach pie with this recipe, too. If that's the case, then I'd skip the ascorbic acid step.

Pop-in-the-Pan Honeyed Peach Pie Filling for Freezing

2 quarts peeled fresh peaches, sliced about 1/4 inch thick

1/2 teaspoon powdered ascorbic acid*

1/2 gallon water

1/2-3/4 cup honey, depending on how sweet the peaches are

1/4 cup quick-cooking tapioca, finely ground in a spice mill

1/8 cup lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon salt

Place the peaches in a large container.  Dissolve the ascorbic acid in the water and pour over the peaches.  Drain.  Combine the peaches, honey, tapioca, lemon juice and salt.  

Line two pie plates with heavy-duty aluminum foil, extending the foil about 5 inches over the rims.  Divide the filling evenly between the pans.  Fold the foil loosely over the filling and place in freezer until filling is frozen (about 4 hours) Remove from freezer, take the filling from the pie plates and wrap the foil snugly around filling.  Label with directions for baking (see below) and place in freezer bags.  

*NOTE:  I didn't have any powdered ascorbic acid (vitamin C on hand), which prevents the peaches from browning,  so I ground up some vitamin C tablets (ascorbic acid is vitamin C, after all).  That's not ideal because the tablets include some filler used to keep the tablet intact.  If, like me, you don't have any powdered ascorbic acid around and don't want to use vitamin C tablets, you can use lemon juice or vinegar instead. The peaches will likely turn a bit browner with the lemon juice (and vinegar may add some acidic notes to the final filling flavor).  Use 1/4 cup lemon juice or vinegar for 1/2 gallon of water.

To bake:  Remove the foil from the filling and place it, unthawed, in a pastry-lined pie plate (the same size that you used to form the filling).  Dot with 1-2 tablespoons of butter and sprinkle with cinnamon (or nutmeg) if you'd like.  Add top crust, flute edges and add vent holes. (Or! check out my handy all-butter pie crust recipe and "rustic" fold-the-top-over method of forming the top crust.)  Bake in preheated 425 degree oven for about 1 hour and 10 minutes or until bubbly. (You might need to tent the crust with foil to keep from over-browning.)

Berries!

Summer 2012 is proving to be an amazing one for berries.  Our raspberry patch is coming in fast and furious along with the blackcap berries that are ripening along the hillside. They made for a delicious lunch today.  Just a drizzle of honey and some yogurt rounded out the dish.  Robert added some whipped cream to his, which was a bit like gilding the lily in my opinion.  

Blueberries aren't quite ready, but we still have a few pints of frozen blues from last year that made a perfect pie for dessert.  I had to act fast to get this photo before the last piece of pie was devoured. This would be the place for some whipped cream if you have it.

BLUEBERRY PIE SWEETENED WITH HONEY
The ground tapioca in this pie makes it sturdy and not at all soupy.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

For the all-butter pie crust:
1 and 1/2 sticks unsalted butter (12 tablespoons), cut into 1/2-inch pieces. Place in the freezer while you gather the rest of the ingredients.
1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
1/3 cup ice water
Briefly (about 5 seconds) pulse the flour, salt and very cold butter in a food processor until the butter is pea-sized. Sprinkle water on top and briefly pulse again to evenly distribute it. The dough will be in loose pellets. Pour onto a lightly floured surface and knead it three or four times to bring it together. Form into a flat disk. Roll out to about 16 or 17 inches (1/4th inch thick). Fit into a 9-inch pie plate, letting dough hang over the edge (this overhang will be folded over the filling to form the top crust).


For the blueberry pie
4 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen)
1/4 cup summer (or spring) honey
1/4 cup tapioca pudding, ground into a powder in a coffee grinder or blender
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (or nutmeg)--optional
2 tablespoons butter

Combine the berries, honey, tapioca and spice if using in a bowl and mix gently but well.  Place the berries in the prepared crust. Dot with the two tablespoons of butter.  Fold the overhanging crust over the berries, leaving a vent hole in the center. You can lightly brush the crust with milk or water and sprinkle some sugar on top if you'd like.

Place the pie in the preheated oven and put a cookie sheet underneath just in case there are any drips.  Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the filling bubbles up from the vent hole.  Cool before slicing.