Homemade Apple Hand Pies Recipe for Halloween

Several apple hand pies in the shape of pumpkins, with carved faces for Halloween.

Homemade Apple Hand Pies Recipe for Halloween

This apple hand pie recipe creates mini apple pies in the shape of pumpkins for Halloween. Have some fun with the expressions you cut into the dough! They're filled with apples, and spiced with cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. The times quoted to make these assume you use frozen store bought pie crust. If you make your own homemade crust, allow for an additional 40 minutes for making, chilling and rolling out the pie crust dough.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword apple hand pie recipe

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 35

chill before creating faces 20

Total Time 1 15

Servings (with some dough left over)

Calories 313kcal

Author Susan Pridmore

Equipment

pumpkin shaped cookie cutter The size I use is 3.75 inches X 3.5 inches. This time of year, you may find this at cooking stores such as Sur la Table, Michaels, and Crate and Barrel.

Ingredients

Homemade Pastry

13.5 ounces (3 cups) all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon kosher salt, or ¼ teaspoon sea salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter chilled, cut into small pieces
½ cup sour cream
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons ice water (or as needed to get the dough to come together)

Homemade Apple Pie Filling

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 ½ cups peeled and diced apples (3 apples) Honey Crisp, Braeburn and Fuji work well
2 ½ tablespoons granulated sugar or 3 tablespoons coconut sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
⅛ teaspoon kosher salt or pinch of sea salt
1 tablespoon turbinado sugar (optional coarse sugar topping)

Egg Wash

1 large egg
1 tablespoon whole milk or half & half

Instructions

Apple Hand Pies:

Melt the butter in a small skillet pan over medium heat, and add all of the Apple Pie Filling ingredients except the turbinado sugar.
Gently simmer for 10 minutes until the apple chunks soften. Cool to room temperature.
Pro-tip: The apple filling should be at room temperature before filling the hand pies. This keeps the butter in the pie crust from beginning to melt before baking.
Preheat the oven to 375˚F, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Make the Homemade Pie Crust (see the below section), or thaw 2 frozen pie crusts if using ready-made pie crusts purchased at your market. When thawed, roll them out, following the package directions.
Cut the dough into pumpkin shapes using a cookie cutter.
Spoon 1 - 2 tablespoons of the Apple Pie Filling into the center of a cut out pumpkin, or however much fits while leaving the edges completely bare. Drape another cut out pumpkin over it. Gentle press the edges to seal using your fingers, and crimp with a fork. Repeat with the remaining pumpkin shapes.
Pro-tip: Doing one pumpkin first will tell you if you need more or less filling, based on the size of your pumpkins.
Pro-tip: It's important to leave the edges bare when filling the hand pies. Otherwise they won't stayed sealed as they bake.
Chill for 20 minutes if you plan to cut out faces in the dough. Otherwise, go to the next step without chilling the dough.
Arrange the apple hand pies on the prepared baking sheet.
Whisk together the egg wash ingredients in a small bowl, and baste the hand pies with it using a pastry brush.
If cutting out faces, use a paring knife to create your jack-o-lanterns. Chilling the dough prevents the dough from stretching when you cut into it.
Sprinkle a little turbinado sugar over the tops of each pumpkin (optional).
Bake for 20 - 30 minutes until a golden brown.

Homemade Pie Crust:

Weigh (or measure) the flour, and pulse it with the salt a few times in the bowl of a food processor. Then add the butter all at once.
Pulse 10 times, remove the lid, and check the size of the butter pieces by dipping a fork into the flour. They should be around size of a pea. If there are large chunks still in the flour, pulse another couple times.
Whisk together the sour cream and apple cider vinegar in a small bowl, and add to the flour mixture all at once. Pulse a few times.
The sour cream adds moisture to the dough. So, before adding any ice water, pinch some of the flour mixture between your fingers. When it's ready, it will hold together without falling apart. If it crumbles easily add a little water, 1 tablespoon at a time.
For more details with photos, click on this link >> a step-by-step process for making your own pie crust with pictures. It also shows how to get a flaky crust using fraisage technique.
When the dough is ready, gather it into 2 balls, flatten into round discs using only your fingers, and wrap in wax paper.
Chill for 30 minutes before rolling out.
Roll out the dough, working with 1 disc at a time, and cut into pumpkin shapes using a cookie cutter.
If you consider yourself a novice in rolling out dough, follow the directions in this post. It shows the easiest way I've ever found to roll out dough, and I consider myself something of an expert at working with pie dough.

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