APPLE HAND PIES Makes 1 dozen. By Dennis W. Viau; modified from a recipe in a restaurant trade journal. This is another recipe I found in a trade journal specific for restaurants. These are individual little fruit pies, made in a muffin pan. Making 12 little pies rather than one big one can be a bit tedious, but the results are well worth the effort. Ingredients: For the Pastry Shell: 22/3 cups (14 ounces/400g) all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons water ½ teaspoon salt 2 large eggs; at room temperature 1 cup (227g) butter; at room temperature 1 tablespoon sugar 1 egg plus 1 teaspoon water to make an egg wash For the Filling: 2 large (10 ounces/283g each) Granny Smith apples; peeled and diced 3 large (+7 ounces/200g) Bosc pears; peeled and diced ½ cup (3.6 ounces/100g) sugar, divided ½ cup (2 ounces/60g) chopped pecans 4 tablespoons cornstarch 2 tablespoons butter Grated lemon zest to taste (from about 1 lemon) 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, divided ½ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 8 ounces (227g) feta cheese, crumbled Directions: For the Pastry Shell: Place the flour in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl combine the water, salt, eggs, butter, and sugar. Whisk well to break the butter into small beads. Add to the flour and combine until dry enough to knead. Knead until smooth (it takes only seconds). Wrap in plastic and set aside in a cool place. For the Filling: When peeling and dicing the apples and pears, you can put a few tablespoons of water and lemon juice in a large bowl to hold the fruit. Turn the fruit repeatedly to coat. The acid in the lemon juice will help protect the fruit from turning brown with oxidation. To the diced fruit, add 6 tablespoons of the sugar, the pecans, cornstarch, butter (melting it will help distribute it more evenly, or cut into small chunks), lemon zest, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla. Cover and set aside. Divide the pastry dough into 1/3 and 2/3 portions. Wrap the smaller portion and set it aside while you work with the larger piece. Divide the dough into four equal portions. While you work with one portion, keep the others wrapped in plastic. Divide one portion into three pieces. Roll each piece into a circle with a diameter large enough to line each cup of the muffin pan, with a little dough extending over the rim. (Mine required 1 20130223
2 a diameter of 3¼ inches (8.25cm).) Continue working with the pieces of dough until all 12 cups of a muffin pan are lined with dough. Heat the oven to 375 F (190 C). Spoon some of the crumbled feta cheese into the bottom of each cup (you will probably have feta left over). Spoon the fruit filling into each muffin cup, mounding the fruit above the rim of each cup. Working with the 1/3 portion of dough set aside earlier, divide into 12 pieces like you did the larger portion and roll each piece into a top crust large enough to cover each muffin cup. Brush the edges of the top crust with the egg wash. Invert it and align it into place to cover each muffin cup, pressing around the edges to seal. Using a small sharp knife, cut a few steam vents into the top of each pie. You can also decorated the edges with the tines of a fork. If necessary, carefully trim the edges of each pie to make it look neat. Brush the top of each pie with egg wash. Garnish with the remaining ½ teaspoon of cinnamon and the remaining sugar. Bake 35 to 40 minutes until golden brown. Cool on a rack until warm. Can be served warm or chilled. 1 STEP-BY-STEP These are the ingredients for the pastry shell. I ve been making this type of pie crust for decades and it has never failed me. For sweet pies I add sugar to the dough. The butter and the eggs should be at room temperature. The need for this will be obvious in the next step.
2 3 Combine the water, salt, sugar, and eggs in a medium bowl. Add the butter and whisk to break up the butter into small beads. This wouldn t be possible if the butter was a hard lump, cold from the refrigerator. If necessary, you can soften the butter in a microwave, but only soften do not melt. 3 Add the butter-egg mixture to the flour and combine until the mixture becomes dry enough to knead.
4 4 Knead the dough until it becomes smooth. This takes only seconds. You can knead it in the bowl it s that easy. Wrap in plastic and store in a cool place. Do not knead the dough too much. Over-kneading will hook up the flour proteins to form gluten chains, which will make the dough elastic. The elasticity will make the dough difficult to shape later. Also, the warmth of your hands, or a warm kitchen, can make the dough oily if the butter melts. If the dough becomes oily, store in the refrigerator for 10 to 20 minutes. 5 This is my mise in place for my filling. The box to the right is supposed to be a small cheese grater. When I first saw it I thought, No, that s a nutmeg grater. I store the nutmeg pods in the box.
6 5 Peel, core, and dice the apples. I am not making a single large pie here; so the fruit needs to be diced fairly small. 7 To help protect the fruit from browning (oxidizing), put a teaspoon or two of lemon juice in a bowl and add an equal amount of water. Put the chopped fruit in the bowl and stir to coat. The acid in the juice will inhibit oxidation.
8 6 Similarly, peel, core, and chop the pears. 9 To the bowl add 6 tablespoons sugar, the pecans, corn starch, butter (either cut into small chunks for melted), the zest of 1 lemon, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, nutmeg, and the vanilla extract. Mix well.
10 7 Feta cheese is commonly sold crumbled. If you buy a solid chunk of Feta it can easily be crumbled using a fork. 11 You ll need a muffin pan for this recipe. Mine has standard-sized cups. There are larger ones and some have deeper cups. With this size pan I wasn t able to use all the fruit and feta, which was odd because the original recipe make 8 to 10. Perhaps they used a larger muffin pan. Spray the pan lightly with non-stick cooking spray.
12 8 Divide the dough by first cutting it into 1/3 and 2/3 sections. (The 1/3 section is to the left.) Wrap the smaller section and set it aside until needed. Divide the larger piece into four. Each quarter can then be rolled into a little cylinder, as shown above, and divided into three pieces. These will be used to shape the 12 bottom crusts to line the cups of the muffin pan. 13 I drew two circles on a piece of parchment paper to serve as guides for shaping my pie shells. The larger circle, obviously, is the bottom crust.
14 9 Roll each piece into a flat circle that is large enough to line each cup, with some dough extending beyond the top edge. It s okay if the edges are a little rough at this stage. They can be shaped in a later step. 15 Put some of the feta cheese in the bottom of each pie shell. I didn t use all the feta the recipe called for, but you can put more in the shells if you want a stronger flavor of feta in your pies. Mine had a very mild flavor.
16 10 Fill each shell with the fruit mixture, mounding it above the top rim of each pie. 17 Using the small portion of dough that was set aside earlier, roll the top crusts. Combine the remaining egg with at teaspoon of water to make an egg wash and either brush the edges of the bottom crust or which I found easier brush around the edges of the top crust before inverting it and placing on top of each pie. Press to seal around the edges. You can decorate the edges with the tines of a fork. Meanwhile, heat your oven to 375 F (190 C).
18 11 Finish by brushing the tops with the egg wash and then dusting the tops with the remaining ½ teaspoon of cinnamon. Sprinkle some of the remaining sugar on top. I prefer to use raw sugar for this garnish because the crystals are larger, which I think gives a better look to the pies. 19 Bake 35 to 40 minutes until the tops are browned. Cool on a rack long enough to be warm for serving. These pies can also be served chilled.
12 Conclusion This was a fun, if a little tedious, dessert to make. I have individual 5-inch (13cm) pie tins with which I plan to experiment later. They would work equally well, although the finished pie might be enough for two.