Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Recipe: Apple Hand Pies


In honor of Rosh Hashanah, I visited the Bethesda Moishe House to make apple hand pies. They were so fun and easy, and definitely tasty!

We used this recipe from AllRecipes.com:

Ingredients

  • 1 pound prepared pie dough, cut into 4 pieces
  • 2 large green apples, peeled and cored
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup white sugar
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, or to taste
  • 1 teaspoon water, or more if needed (optional)
  • 1 egg
  • 2 teaspoons milk
  • 1 teaspoon white sugar, or as needed - divided

Directions

  1. Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper.
  2. Cut peeled and cored apples into quarters, cut each quarter into 3 wedges, and cut wedges into chunks.
  3. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat; let butter brown to a light golden color and until butter smells toasted, about 1 minute. Stir apples into hot butter; sprinkle with salt, white sugar, and brown sugar. Cook and stir apple mixture until apples are softened, about 5 minutes. Mix in cinnamon and water; continue cooking until apples are soft and sticky, 1 to 2 more minutes. Spread apple filling onto a plate to cool.
  4. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
  5. Form a dough piece into a ball, place on a floured work surface, and roll into a circle about 8 inches in diameter. Spoon 1/3 to 1/2 cup apple filling in the center. Fold dough over filling, leaving about 1 inch of dough on the bottom side visible below the top side. Gently press dough closed around filling, using your fingertips.
  6. Fold the overhanging bottom part of the dough up over the top edge, working your way around the crust, and pinch the overhang tightly to the top part of the crust.
  7. Crimp the edge tightly closed, pinching a little bit of dough with the thumb and forefinger of one hand and using your index finger on the other hand to push a small notch into the pinched dough. Continue pinching and notching all the way around until the crust is tightly crimped together. Repeat with remaining dough and filling. Transfer pies onto prepared baking sheet.
  8. Whisk egg with milk in a small bowl until thoroughly combined. Brush top of each hand pie with egg mixture and sprinkle with about 1/4 teaspoon white sugar. Cut 3 small vent holes in the top of each pie.
  9. Bake in the preheated oven until pies are golden brown and filling is bubbling, 25 to 30 minutes. Let cool for at least 15 minutes before serving.
Since this was a group activity, I myself didn't actually do most of these steps. The dough and filling were already made by the time I showed up, so the group was really just rolling out the dough, filling it, folding it, and that was it. So maybe that's why I thought this was so easy! We made it even easier by using an empanada dough press to cut out the dough circles and then to press the pies closed. I'm not even sure we baked them that long. I thought everything went pretty quickly, and they were so yummy!

Maybe next time I'll actually help from start to finish. THEN I'll really know whether this recipe is so simple!

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