Berry Scary Hand Pies for Halloween

I decided to scare up some hand pies

with October’s arrival

and in anticipation of Halloween!

Some scary hands reached out and grabbed me when I was creeping along the aisles of Target, one of my favorite Haunts, last October. . .

Now these sinister skeletal hands have some pies in their evil clutches. . .

Literal eye candy in the form of Wilton Candy Eyeballs were also watching me from the aisles of Target recently.

Providing smiles and stares, rather than scares, with their appearance on pops, cookies, and cupcakes, and this case. . .

Berry Scary Hand Pies!

I used my Pie Press, but you could use any pie press or cut a circle out of pastry using a bowl as a template, crimping with a fork to make your hand pies.

A store-bought pie crust would make these frightfully simple & quick, or use your favorite pie pastry recipe.

I decided to indulge and make a cream cheese pastry crust from Kraft, quick and easy with a food processor.

Cream Cheese Pastry

2 cups all purpose flour

½ tsp. salt

1 pkg. (8 oz.) Cream Cheese, softened (I use light cream cheese)

1 cup (2 sticks) cold butter or margarine

Pulse all ingredients, then divide into two portions.

Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours until firm.

Hand Pie Ingredients:

1 pkg of refrigerated pie crust, or recipe for a double crust pie

(I got 10 pies out of my cream cheese pastry recipe)

1/3 cup sugar

2 tsp cornstarch

1 cup fresh fruit*

1 egg beaten

Additional sugar for sprinkling on pastry

*I substituted 2 cups of frozen mixed berries (no thawing necessary) and mixed 1/4 cup of strawberry preserves with 1/4 sugar and 2 teaspoons of cornstarch. That seemed to be the right ratio of filling using frozen berries and for 10 pies.

OR

Save yourself some steps and substitute pie filling instead, since these hand pies will be quickly disappearing.

Heat oven to 400 degrees F.

Unwrap refrigerated dough or roll homemade dough into 9” circle. Using back of pie press, cut circle out of pastry dough.

 Place dough circle onto top of crimped side of pie press, pressing dough circle down slightly in center.

In small bowl combine fruit with sugar and cornstarch. Spoon 2 tbsp of fruit mixture onto indented portion of pastry circle.

Using a pastry brush, brush edges of pastry circle with beaten egg. With handles of pie press, fold pie in half and squeeze tightly to crimp and seal edges.

Place pies on baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush tops with egg mixture and sprinkle with additional sugar. Cut small slits in top of pie to allow steam to escape. Bake 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

Cool and place candy eyeballs on pies.

These skeletal hands are much scarier than the pies, but the more slits and filling you use, the scarier with more oozing & bleeding of the berry filling.

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 Metamorphosis Monday