Baking| Apple Strawberry Basil Hand Pies from Beantown Baker {SRC}

“Looks like you could use an extra hand.”
American Pie

Apple Strawberry Basil Hand PiesWe’re already trotting through the second week of September, the days are whizzing by! Just when I thought I’d done the SRC for the month, a Plum Almond Ginger Summer Fruit, I found a reminder in my inbox. Whoa we’re into the next month, a race against time as always, yet this club is fun! I made delicious Apple Strawberry Basil Hand Pies that I picked & adapted from Beantown Baker, my secret blog for September.

The Secret Recipe Club is the brainchild of Amanda of Amanda’s Cookin’.

The idea behind the club – Each month you are “assigned” a participating food blogger to make a recipe from. It’s a secret, so don’t tell them you are making something from their blog! Click on the link if you want to join the fun!!

Jen @ Beantown Baker lives in Boston with her hubby and two cats. She works as an engineer by day, and is baker by night when she gets home and enjoys spending her free time in the kitchen. She loves all desserts and has a huge to-bake list. Her hubby serves as her number one taste tester and her lucky coworkers and friends get to enjoy baked goods on a regular basis. It was wonderful to explore her blog as we seem to have so much in common, beginning with a ‘love for baking’!  It was like a treasure chest, I flitted from one post to another, so much to do and so little time! I thought I’d bake these utterly delicious looking Strawberry Peach Basil Bars but sadly the stone fruit season has drawn to an end. Then I chanced upon these Strawberry Hand Pies …YES!! I’ve been charmed by hand pies forever but have never got down to making these sweetly delicious sorts! They reminded me of pop tarts! I went with whatever fruit I had on hand… apples and frozen strawberries. In a last minute moment of inspiration, I threw in some fresh basil! YUM! I also tried a few different shapes, including a roll up and a lattice!They turned out to be delicious, though I think I rolled the dough a tad too thin. As Jen says, “The pastry dough is VERY easy to work with. And quite tasty.”  I kept my pies vegetarian and gave the pastry a low fat cream wash, followed with a sprinkling of vanilla sugar. Hand pies are convenient food, great grub on the go and and can be sweet or savoury. Almost every culture has a version of their own, mostly baked.

Hand pies are semilunar-shaped pastries with either a sweet or savory filling, formed by placing a dollop of filling onto a circular piece of biscuit-style dough and then folding it over and crimping it shut. They may be baked, fried or deep-fried.

English Cornish pasties are said the most famous in this category, and go back to the 1800’s when miners wives would freshly bake shortcrust pastry with a beef filling, and pop the pies wrapped in a towel or newspaper into the miners pockets. Miners would hold the pies with the crimped edges, their hands dirty with arsenic and coal etc, eat the pie and throw away the crimped edge.
Many countries have popular versions of hand pies. India has the addictive samosa, a  savoury patty, deep fried and absolutely delicious. Traditionally with a stuffing of potatoes, peas {and sometimes cottage cheese and raisins}, the filling is wrapped in a triangle of pastry and deep fried. We munched through cartloads of these in school, college and while I was working. I have a Chicken Mince Cocktail Samosa posted here which makes for great cocktail / party snacks. Other versions include the Spanish empanada, the Italian calzone & Jamaican patties. Have you heard of any others? OK we have more … Malaysian curry puffs {thank you Jehanne@ The Cooking Doctor}, Indian gujiya {thank you Fahad @ Simply Fahad-istic}.
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Recipe: Apple Strawberry Basil Hand Pies

Summary: Delicious and comforting hand pies, charming bites somewhat like pop tarts. Dough from Alton Brown, filling from Dinner and Dessert, originally from Smitten Kitchen – makes about 15. Adapted from Beantown Baker

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes
Ingredients:

  • Pastry Dough
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 75gm unsalted butter, chilled
  • 3/4 cup milk
  • Juice of 1/2 lime
  • Filling
  • 3-4 apples, peeled, cored, diced small
  • 1 cup frozen strawberries, chopped fine in processor
  • Juice of 1/2 lime
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1/2 vanilla bean, scraped
  • Handful of fresh basil, chiffonaded
  • Glaze
  • 2 tbsp low fat cream { or an egg wash of 1 egg mixed with 1 to 2 teaspoons water}
  • 1 sachet vanilla sugar

Method:

  1. Make the Filling
  2. Toss all ingredients well in a big bowl, and keep aside.
  3. Make the Pastry Dough
  4. In the bowl of a food processor, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Pulse for a few seconds and then pour into a large mixing bowl.
  5. Add the shortening and knead it into the flour with your hands until it is crumbly.
  6. Add the milk all at once and mix in with a spatula until it begins to come together.
  7. Lightly flour your hands and the countertop and turn the dough out onto the countertop. Knead the dough ball, folding over 10 to 20 times. {Thermomix: Add flour, baking powder and salt to TM bowl. Run on Speed 6/5 seconds. Add remaining ingredients and run on Speed 6/ 7 seconds. Turn to knead and run for 1 minute.}
  8. Using a rolling pin roll the dough to 1/3 to 1/2-inch thickness, then cut into rounds using a 2 1/4-inch ring. Roll each round as thinly as possible or to 5 to 6 inches in diameter.
  9. Spoon 1 to 2 tablespoons of filling onto the dough, brush the edges of half of the dough lightly with the cream / egg wash, fold over and seal the edges together with the tines of a fork, dipping it into flour as needed. Gently press down to flatten and evenly distribute the filling and snip or cut 3 slits in the top of the pie.
  10. Brush a little bit of cream / egg wash on the outside of the pie and sprinkle with vanilla sugar.
  11. To bake pies, preheat the oven to 180C. Place finished pies onto a lined cookie sheet and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown.
  12. Serve warm {after about 20 minutes as the filling can be very hot} or at room temperature. We liked them chilled too with a drizzle of unsweetened low fat cream as dessert!

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Don’t miss a post Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India

 

Published by

Deeba @ PAB

About me: I am a freelance food writer, recipe developer and photographer. Food is my passion - baking, cooking, developing recipes, making recipes healthier, using fresh seasonal produce and local products, keeping a check on my carbon footprint and being a responsible foodie! I enjoy food styling, food photography, recipe development and product reviews. I express this through my food photographs which I style and the recipes I blog. My strength lies in 'Doing Food From Scratch'; it must taste as good as it looks, and be healthy too. Baking in India, often my biggest challenge is the non-availability of baking ingredients, and this has now become a platform to get creative on. I enjoy cooking immensely as well.

47 thoughts on “Baking| Apple Strawberry Basil Hand Pies from Beantown Baker {SRC}”

  9. Isn’t apple the flavor of the day! Love the pictures and love your pick for SRC. As always Deeba you have made a great looking (and I bet tasting) dessert!

    Reply

  10. yet another gorgeous bake, deeba..and to answer you, Malaysian curry puffs are almost like samosa..I’ve got a draft written on it, sitting there collecting dust as the pics are so lousy..:-(

    Reply

  12. Apple strawberries and basil… that’s an unusual flavor combination! I should try that sometime – very curious to see what the basil adds to the fruit. The pies look gorgeous for sure 🙂

    Reply

  13. Basil – what a fresh addition! I definitely would not be as likely to discard the crimped edge like those miners…

    Reply

  15. I’ve always wanted to make fruity hand pies. especially since I knew there had to be better than than the packaged brands I grew up. Yours look amazing, Deeba, and have catapulted my need to make them soon! Couldn’t have chosen and ‘rocked’ a better recipe!

    Reply

  16. I do love baking sweets with herbs, Deeba. The fruits you used are really good together and I love the way you presented those adorable little gems.

    Reply

  17. The English Cornish pastie is a great way to use left overs but it is baked not fried.

    Reply

  22. The basil has me intrigued Deeba…I guess it is unfair to relegate it to only savory dishes so I’ll be adventurous next time too. They look so beautiful…too pretty to eat. But I would if you forced me!

    Reply

  27. This might sound silly of me,but in India we have a sweet named ‘gujia’,these pies reminded me of it.The reason – gujias look just the same,though they are very different,they are filled with a mixture of wholemilk fudge and nuts.
    Thank you for sharing this recipe.:-)

    Reply

  28. I’d never heard of hand pies but I’m an expert on eating Cornish pasties (actually my husband is as he eats one every day when we are on holiday in UK). These look so pretty and delicate – I love the strip of fabric round the top of the milk bottle. Basil with strawberries – two summery tastes that I adore.

    Reply

  29. I love the idea of combining sweet fruit with herbs that one might consider savoury. Too bad I just recently killed my basil plant. I might have to go out and buy another one now to make these beautiful pies.
    *kisses* HH

    Reply

  30. These pies look fascinating. They look like a bigger, fruitier version of our local gujjiya.

    I would love to try this one and when I do, I ‘d let you know.

    Reply

  33. Your handpies look delicious. Handpies are on my baking to do list. I’m so intrigued by the combination of fruit and basil. Beautiful photos!

    Reply

  34. You know Deeba in my country these pies are called sweet empanadas.
    As you guess I love them, more if they have strawberry and apple inside 🙂

    Cheers,

    Gera

    Reply

  36. This looks delicious, and I love all the extra information! I have some fresh apples in my fridge and a basil “tree” in my front yard…think I know what I’ll be doing this weekend 🙂

    Reply

  38. OMGoodness Deeba, I always liked the half moon shaped hand pies whether sweet or savory. Love the added basil into the mix I never combined as of yet basil into sweet, maybe now that you did I would brave it!! 🙂

    Reply

  42. Hi Deeba, Your Apple Strawberry Basil Hand Pies recipe has been selected to be featured in a Recipe Guessing Game. Please share the following link with your friends and fans. To play, go here: Congrats again!! 🙂

    Reply

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