Remember how I had extra pie dough after making the personal apple pies? I decided to make toaster pastries with the leftover dough…but then that changed into hand pies because it was easier for me to punch out rounds from the dough and I have a tendency to overstuff things.
After making the pies, I ended up lumping the leftover dough back into a ball and sticking it back in the fridge. I came back to it a day later and rolled out a 1/4″-thick sheet and punched out 3.5″ circles. I rolled the circles out to a thickness of about 1/8″ and then plopped in a tablespoon or so of super-reduced cranberry preserves (my typical cranberry sauce reduced to the point where a scoop of it will pretty much just stick to the spoon when held upside down and yes I still have cranberry sauce because I buy a lot of cranberries when I’m able to get them and then stick them in the freezer because I’m immensely fond of cranberries). I brushed the edges of the bottom crust with some water and stuck another round on top and crimped the edges with a fork. I also had a weird lump of dough left after punching out all the circles, so I just rolled it out so that it was mostly symmetrical and filled it and folded it over on itself.
I brushed milk over the hand pies and put them in the oven at 425degF for 20min and then reduced the temp to 375degF and baked them for another 20ish min. I didn’t sprinkle sugar over the top, but I think I will next time. I don’t make my cranberry preserves very sweet so I think maybe a little extra sugar on the crust would be nice for next time.
The resultant pies were pretty. Using a super-reduced filling really helped. I was half afraid that I would have some volcanic blowout like I normally do when I bake with cranberry. There was only some slight oozing this time. NBD. The crust browned very nicely and puffed up a bit like puff pastry, which is the main reason why I ended up calling them hand pies instead of toaster pastries. I don’t think you’d be able to fit them into a toaster slot.
Also, they tasted pretty good. But really, it’s pie crust and cranberry. How are you going to go wrong there?
Random moosages as I see fit. 