Description
Enjoy these incredibly easy and tasty spiced apple and blackberry hand pies filled with a delightful combination of aromatic apples and juicy blackberries, encased in buttery shortcrust pastry and perfect for a comforting dessert.
Ingredients
Scale
Fruit Filling
- 2 medium cooking apples peeled, cored and chopped into small pieces
- 50 g golden caster sugar
- 150 g blackberries fresh or frozen
- 1 tablespoon cornflour
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pastry
- 2 sheets 320 g shortcrust pastry sheets
- 1 small egg beaten
- 1 tablespoon caster sugar
Instructions
- Cook Apples: Place the chopped apples in a small saucepan with golden caster sugar and 2 tablespoons of water. Cover with a lid and cook for about 8 minutes until the apples are soft. Tip the cooked apples into a shallow dish and spread out to cool slightly.
- Prepare Fruit Filling: In a small bowl, mix together the cornflour, honey, and ground cinnamon to form a smooth paste. Add the blackberries to the cooled apples and drizzle the cinnamon-honey paste over them. Gently mix to combine all ingredients.
- Cut Pastry Circles: Unroll the shortcrust pastry sheets. Using a 10 cm pastry cutter or an upside-down ramekin or glass, cut out 12 circles from the pastry.
- Assemble Pies: Spoon about 1 tablespoon of the fruit filling onto half of the pastry circles, leaving a 1 cm border around the edges. Brush the edges of these circles with beaten egg wash, then place a plain pastry circle on top to encase the filling. Use your fingers to create small dents at the top and bottom to shape like an apple. Seal edges thoroughly with the prongs of a fork.
- Add Decorative Touches: Brush each pie with egg wash. Use any pastry off-cuts to cut out little leaves and stalk shapes, attach them to the pies using more egg wash, and poke a steam hole on top using a skewer.
- Chill Pies: Transfer the pies to a baking sheet and chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour or overnight. At this stage, pies can also be frozen for up to 3 months.
- Bake Pies: Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius (180 degrees Celsius fan). Bake the pies for 25 minutes until golden brown and the filling is bubbling through the steam holes. If baking from frozen, add an extra 10 minutes to the bake time.
- Serve: Sprinkle the warm pies with caster sugar and serve with a dollop of cream or custard as desired.
Notes
- If you don’t have a 10 cm round pastry cutter, use an upside-down ramekin or a glass with a similar diameter as a substitute.
- For making ahead, follow the recipe up to chilling in step 6. The pies can be stored in the fridge for up to 24 hours or frozen for up to 3 months before baking.
- Use digital scales for more accurate measurements, especially when using metric grams.
- Use fresh or frozen blackberries interchangeably based on availability.
