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The Berry Hand Pie Days of Summer continue…

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The opposite of a commercial hand pie, these Two-Fisted Blueberry Hand Pies are exceeding generous on filling and have a thin crust. They’re also monstrously huge: even if you share one with a friend, it’s still a lot of pie. Besides being homemade, from scratch, and delicious, these pies have a lot of other things going for them. The filling is cooked on its own, so there’s no guesswork about when to pull the pies out of the oven: as soon as the crust is a nice, golden brown, they’re done. Also, because of their size, you can easily bake two of them off in a toaster oven. Bake the other two immediately after, or freeze them and bake them even several months later.

We made these pies the old fashioned way: by hand. No food processor, no stand mixer.

What you need to make 4 mammoth (7½” x 4½” x 1½”) hand pies:

For the filling

8 cups (4 pints) fresh blueberries, picked over
½ cup sugar
2 Tbs butter
2 Tbs cornstarch
2 Tbs all-purpose flour
Zest from ½ lemon
¼ tsp cinnamon

How to make the filling

Place all ingredients into a large pot. Heat over a medium-low flame (setting 3 out of 9), turning the contents (bringing the berries from the bottom up toward the top, and keeping the entire contents in rotation within the pot) constantly, until a liquid begins to form on the bottom of the pot: about 3-4 minutes. Continue to cook, stirring frequently-to-constantly, guarding carefully against scorching, until the berries break down and form a thick gel: about 8 minutes, or at least to 144°F, but not over 180°F. Off heat. Allow to cool.

Next, you’ll need four 1-cup-capacity gratin dishes or crème brûlée ramekins. You’ll also need some plastic wrap. Rip off a sheet of plastic approx. three times the width of the ramekin. Use the left side of the plastic to line the inside of a ramekin, leaving a large excess of plastic to the right. Fill the ramekin with blueberry pie filling. Then, fold the excess plastic over the pie filling to seal the filling into the ramekin. Repeat this process to fill all the ramekins. Place the ramekins in the freezer overnight.

For the crust

This is a traditional shortcrust pastry with higher-than-usual hydration, rolled thinner than most pie crusts. It’s tender, rich, and delicious, but neither dry nor crumbly.

2½ cups AP flour, plus more for rolling
2 Tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
12 Tbs (1½ sticks) cold butter, cut into ¼-inch pieces
½ cup cold vegetable shortening, cut into 4 pieces
½ cup vodka
1 egg, beaten

How to make the crust and assemble and bake the pies

1. Whisk the flour, sugar, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Cut in the butter and shortening in two additions: the first, blend with your hands; the second, use a dough blender to grind the butter and shortening while you rotate the bowl about an eighth of a turn with your other hand. Grind the dough blender until you achieve a mealy texture, about 150 times.
2. Pour the vodka into a 1-cup-capacity container with ¼-cup water and fill the container with ice. Cover the container tightly and give the contents a slow, moderate-but-thorough series of shakes until the vodka mixture is ice-cold: about 5 seconds. Strain the contents into the flour mixture, and use a rubber spatula to bring the mixture together. Finish bringing it together with your hands, pressing the dough together in the bowl.
3. Roll the dough into a 1-inch-thick rectangle, using flour as necessary to prevent sticking. Divide the dough into thirds.  Stack the thirds, and roll the dough again into a 1-inch-thick rectangle. Divide the dough into quarters. Shape each quarter like a large puck, or a fillet mignon. Wrap each quarter separately and chill for an hour.
4. Leave the remaining dough in the refrigerator while you work with one of the pucks. Unwrap it and roll it into a 10-inch circle. This will require a somewhat generous amount of flour. Use a butter knife to gently pry the filling out of one of the ramekins. Unwrap it, and place it into the center of the dough circle. Fold one edge of the dough over the filling, without stretching the dough. (The dough should reach a bit beyond the center of the filling.) Next, you’re going to fold the opposite side over, and then the two ends, but before you do, give some thought to how you’ll use the egg wash. Any place that you have dough on dough, you’ll want egg wash to help seal it. However, all of these folds will become the bottom of the pie, and you don’t want egg wash on the outside of the bottom of the pie, or it will stick to the baking sheet. So, brush accordingly and seal the filling into the dough. You may want to cut away any excess dough, but it isn’t necessarily necessary. Turn the pie fold-side-down and place on a baking sheet. Slide the baking sheet into the refrigerator and let the pie chill. Continue with remaining dough and filling.
5. Preheat the oven to convection-bake at 400°F. (Non-convection oven: 425°F.) Brush the tops and sides of the pies with egg wash. Bake the pies until they’re golden brown: 27½ minutes. Place the baking sheet on a rack to allow the pies to fully cool.

For the glaze

1½ cup powdered sugar, divided
3 Tbs water, divided

How to make the glaze and glaze the pies

Stir half of the sugar and half of the water together until no lumps remain. Place the fully-cooled pies on a wire rack over a baking sheet. Spoon the glaze over the pies. If glaze wells up in some parts of the pie, use the spoon to push it onto other parts of the pie. Gather the glaze that dripped onto the baking sheet, scrape it back into the bowl, place the sheet back under the pies, and re-glaze. Repeat until not much glaze makes it to the sheet. Once that glaze has fully set (about an hour), mix remaining sugar and water, and repeat the entire process. Serve at room temperature.

For short term storage, keep the pies wrapped in wax paper on the countertop. For longer-term storage, wrap them in plastic and keep them refrigerated; even though we feel they’re best at room temperature, they’re still quite delicious cold. The glaze will “melt” in the fridge, but it will return to normal again when the pie returns to room temperature. They also freeze well.

Notes:

Fresh, in-season, locally-grown berries have a flavor far superior to any others.

Obviously, you don’t have to make pies as large as ours. Let your imagination run wild in terms of the containers you’ll use to freeze the filling. A 6-oz. teacup would make a beautiful mini-pie, eventually inverted, with decorative vents cut into it.

To whisk the dry crust ingredients by hand, draw an S through the bowl with the whisk, while you give the bowl about an eighth of a turn with your other hand. Do this 100 times.

Three-quarters of a cup of liquid seems like a lot, but trust us – or trust “Foolproof Pie Dough,” in The Complete America’s Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook 2001-2015, (Brookline, MA: 2014), pg. 827, since this pie crust is modeled after theirs.

If you wind up with a small tear in the dough, you can tolerate it if it’s on top of the pie, but on the sides or bottom there’d be a risk of the filling running out in the oven.

If you bake these pies in a toaster oven, use the lowest rack position. Don’t be tempted to bake them without a baking sheet (or drip tray) beneath them. As they bake, some butter will seep from the crust.

These pies need the full amount of glaze. It isn’t optional.

Two-Fisted Blueberry Hand Pies

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! Thank you, Kesor. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything.

Savory Simple and Real Simple inspired this post. What’s the difference between this week’s pie and last week’s? The crust and the size. Last week’s pie had serious pastry heritage. This week’s pie is more like a traditional pie. This week’s pie is for someone who loves filling. There’s just enough crust to give the filling the richness it needs to set it off. Last week’s pie was rustically elegant. This week’s pie is excessive. One pie is probably three or four servings. 

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