Strawberry Hand Pies - easy homemade hand pie recipe (2024)

FAQs

What are hand pies made of? ›

A hand pie is basically a miniature pie that fits in your hand. It can be sweet or savory and is made by placing a small amount of filling onto a circular (or rectangular) piece of pie dough, folding the dough over and sealing it shut before baking. You'll be shocked how much easier they are to make than an actual pie.

You have to let the cooked filling cool COMPLETELY before adding any fresh berries. If it's warm or hot, it'll cook the berries, causing them to leak moisture, causing your pie to be runny, weepy, or not set up.

Much of the world calls hand pies meat pies or pasties (PAS-ties) and traces their origins back to at least 19th-century England, where they were a convenient lunch for Cornish tin miners.

The humble hand pie goes by many different names: Call it a pasty, a turnover, an empanada, or whatever you like — the crowd-pleasing filled pastry is always welcome on any table.

There are four ingredients in a standard pie crust: flour, fat, liquid, and salt.

Combine mashed strawberries and water in a saucepan; bring to a boil and simmer for about 3 minutes. Strain juice from cooked strawberries and add enough water to make 1 cup of juice. Discard pulp. Combine sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and salt in a saucepan; stir strawberry juice into the sugar mixture.

To thicken strawberry pie filling, you'll need to cook it on the stove and use a starch such as cornstarch (or a cornstarch substitute like tapioca starch or flour).

Blind bake the crust: If you're making a pie with a moist filling, like fruit pies, blind baking the crust can help prevent sogginess. Blind baking means baking the crust without any filling in it.

Assembled and unbaked hand pies can be covered and refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 3 months. If frozen, no need to thaw before baking; simply add an extra couple minutes of bake time. Baked hand pies can be frozen for up to 3 months.

Let cool for 10 minutes, then serve warm. The hand pies can be cooled completely and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Should pies be baked covered or uncovered? ›

Cover edge of crust with 2- to 3-inch wide strips of foil after first 15 to 20 minutes of baking to prevent excessive browning.

The Ancient Egyptians were the first to invent a dish close to what we know as a pie today. They had a honey filling covered in a crusty cake made from oats, wheat, rye or barley. A recipe for chicken pie was also discovered on a tablet carved prior to 2000 BC.

Pie History

Egyptian “pies” were called galettes, with the crust consisting of ground oats, rye, wheat, or barley and contained honey on the inside. These pies were sweet in nature and evidence of them can be found on the tomb walls of the Pharaoh Ramesses II, who ruled from 1304-1237 BC.

With strong ties to Cornwall, England, the pasty (pronounced pass-tee not paste-tee) is a folded pastry (often known as a hand pie) traditionally filled with a savory mix of meat and veggies.

An empanada is a type of hand pie that is usually made up of a combination of meats, vegetables, and cheese contained in a flaky dough. Though empanadas are common in Latin America and Spain, most other countries have their own version of hand pies. Samosas, turnovers, and Jamaican patties are just a few examples.

A pasty is a British hand pie, which means that it's a pie that can be eaten out of hand - fillings, wrapped in pastry, and baked.

Hubig's Pies, also sometimes called Hubig's New Orleans Style Pies, are a brand of fruit and sweet-filled fried pies that are produced by the Simon Hubig Pie Company in New Orleans, Louisiana.