Chocolate Hand Pies with Strawberry Filling
This Chocolate Strawberry Hand Pie recipe is the perfect play on chocolate covered strawberries for Valentine’s Day. These strawberry hand pies are made with a chocolate pie crust and a zesty homemade orange strawberry pie filling.
Servings: 9 hand pies
Ingredients
1 batch of chocolate pie dough
- 1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour 165 g
- ¼ cup cocoa powder 22 g
- ¼ cup granulated sugar 50 g
- ¼ rounded teaspoon kosher salt
- 5 ounce unsalted butter cold and cubed, 142 g
- 4 - 5 tablespoon cold water
- Extra cocoa powder for rolling
Pie Filling
- 1 pound fresh strawberry 454 g
- Zest of ½ orange
- 1 tablespoon orange juice
- ¼ cup granulated sugar 50 g
- 3 tablespoon cornstarch 21 g
- A big pinch of kosher salt
Egg wash
- 1 large egg
- 1 tablespoon of cream milk or water
- Turbinado sugar
Instructions
Prepare the strawberry filling
- Wash and dry the strawberries and orange.
- Zest and juice the orange.
- Add sugar, salt and cornstarch to a small bowl and mix to combine.
- Hull and chop the strawberries into bite size pieces and add to a small sauce pan. Sprinkle the cornstarch mixture over the berries.
- Add orange zest and juice to the sauce pan and bring the mixture to a simmer over medium high heat, about 2 minutes. Reduce heat to medium and cook until thicken, about 3 more minutes, stirring frequently to avoid burning the cornstarch.
- Set the filling aside to cool.
Make the dough
- Add flour, cocoa powder, sugar and salt in a small bowl and mix thoroughly with a whisk. Then transfer to a food processor fitted with the dough blade.
- Cube the cold butter and add to the flour mixture. Pulse several times until butter is about pea and bean size, variation in size is okay, but no smaller than a pea.
- Turn the food processor to “on” position and drizzle cold water over the dough mixture through the water hole, as soon as the dough starts to pull together turn the food processor off. You may need to stop the food processor in between and get a spatula to get the flour at the bottom to mix up.
- Turn the dough out on the counter or cutting board and shape into a disk. Wrap in plastic and rest in the refrigerator for at least an hour.
Prepare the pie
- Take the pie dough out of the refrigerator and roll out to about ¼” thick. Use extra cocoa powder to keep dough from sticking to the counter and roller. Use a 3" heart shape cookie cutter and cut out 9 hearts.
- Re-roll the scraps to about ⅛” thick and cut out 9 more hearts. One batch of pie dough should be enough for 9 hand pies. Place the pie dough on a parchment lined baking sheet and refrigerate until ready to use.
- Beat an egg with one tablespoon of cream, milk or water to make egg wash.
- Take two pieces of pie dough out of the fridge, one thin one and one thick one. Roll the thicker piece out slightly larger than its original size, about ¼” more on all sides. This piece will be used as the top crust.
- Brush egg wash around the edge of the thinner piece of dough that will be used as the bottom crust, spoon 2 tablespoons of the strawberry filling on top. Cover it with the larger top crust. Press the edges together and seal with a fork. Repeat for the remaining hearts. You can refrigerate the assembled pies while you work on the rest.
- Preheat oven to 400°F, let the pies rest in the freezer (or refrigerator if you don't have space in the freezer) while the oven is preheating.
- Just before baking, brush egg wash generously over the entire surface of the pies. Create steam vents on the top by poking holes with the tip of a paring knife. Sprinkle with turbinado sugar.
- Bake 20 to 22 minutes uncovered.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool to the touch on a wire rack.
Notes
- If at any point, the dough feels too soft, chill it in the refrigerator before continuing to the next step.
- When freezing the pies before baking, it is best to put them on a small baking sheet that fit in your freezer, then transfer them to a larger baking sheet later for baking.
- You can use either natural cocoa powder or dutch processed cocoa powder for the pie crust. However, dutch processed will give a deeper chocolate flavor.
- Use cocoa powder for dusting and rolling to get more uniform surface on the pie crust after baking.
Nutrition
Serving: 116g | Calories: 264kcal
