Spiced Pear Hand Pies
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If you’re wanting to dip your toes (err … hands) into baking from scratch, these spiced pear hand pies are an easy way to develop your skills. With just one hour of active time, these homemade hand pies are the perfect winter weekend baking activity that your whole family can enjoy.
Because of their small size and mild, sweet flavors, this hand pie recipe is just right for making (and eating) with little hands. Your kids will love helping whip up a batch of these pear hand pies.
How kids can help make these spiced pear hand pies:
Rolling the dough with their own toy rolling pin
Selecting one of their own bowls to use for the circle cutouts (usually a kid-sized bowl is the perfect size)
Choosing which dough circles to use on top and which ones to use on bottom
Sealing the dough together with a fork (easy to do but with a fun visual payoff)
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Spiced Pear Hand Pies
Start to finish: Active: 1 hour | Inactive: 2 hours
Impresses: 6
Ingredients
For the crust:
2½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup butter (2 sticks), cold and cut into squares
8 tablespoons ice-cold water
For the filling:
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
½ cup granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1 lemon (1 teaspoon lemon zest plus a squeeze of lemon juice, divided)
5 pears, peeled and diced
6 dollops butter, room temperature
1 egg, for egg wash
1 teaspoon water, for egg wash
Method
For the crust:
In a large bowl, whisk together flour and salt. Add cold butter. Use a pastry cutter or 2 forks to press and mix together until the consistency resembles crumbs the size of peas.
Add cold water 1 tablespoon at a time and use a spoon to mix the water with the flour mixture. Dough should be slightly sticky but manageable. Use your hands to mold the dough into a ball and wrap with plastic wrap. Place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours and ideally overnight.
For the filling and to assemble:
Remove dough from refrigerator. Heat oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
In a medium-sized bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and lemon zest. Whisk together. Add the peeled and diced pears to the dry mixture and fold together to coat the pears. Set aside.
Sprinkle a bit of flour on a flat surface. Roll out dough to ¼-inch thickness. Use a bowl about 4 inches in diameter and press it, open side down, into the dough to make a circle. Repeat. Place dough circles onto the baking sheet. Re-roll the excess dough out and cut out more circles until the dough is all used. This should make 6 circles.
Take ½ of the dough circles, and spoon about 2–3 tablespoons of the pear filling onto the center of each circle. Place a small dollop of butter plus a squeeze of lemon juice over the pear mixture. Place the other ½ of the dough circles on top of the pear filling. Using a fork, press into the edges to seal the dough together. Mix egg and water to make an egg wash. Brush the egg wash over the top of the dough circles.
Take a knife and cut small slits into the top of each hand pie. Bake 20–25 minutes or until golden brown.
Remove pear hand pies from oven and let cool 15–20 minutes. Serve warm alone or in a bowl with caramel drizzle and a big scoop of vanilla ice cream.