Apple Hand Pies
By: The Duo Dishes
Published: Wednesday, December 2, 2009 - 3:27pm

Ingredients




Dough

 cups flour
1/8 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 cup unsalted butter, very cold and cubed
4 ounces cream cheese, very cold and cubed
1 egg yolk
Filling

2 large apples, peeled and diced
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon Frangelico (or vanilla or rum)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
Juice of 1/2 a lemon

2 tablespoons milk
Sugar, optional

Preparation

1 Start dough by whisking dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl. Add butter and incorporate with a pastry blender until coarse crumbs develop. Add cream cheese and incorporate well. 2 Plop in egg yolk and stir with a fork until dough comes together into a ball. 3 Turn dough out onto a floured surface and roll into a uniform ball. Slightly press flat with the palm of your hand and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill at least one hour. 4 Once dough has chilled, set it on a floured surface and roll it out to about 10″ x 12″. Cut into sixteen even squares. Lay the dough squares on a parchment paper covered baking sheet and set in the freezer to chill. 5 In a separate bowl, toss the apples with the lemon juice, maple syrup, spices and brown sugar. Make sure to cover all of the apple pieces. 6 Take dough out of freezer. Drop about 1 tablespoon of filling into the center of each piece of dough. Fold one pointed edge towards its opposite corner to form a triangle.  Crimp edges with a fork along the seams. Repeat with all of the dough. 7 Brush a little milk over the top of each turnover and sprinkle with extra sugar if desired. (Pop back into the freezer for a quick chill if the dough is soft.). Bake in a preheated oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until browned.

About


Have you ever had desserts that were just two sweet?  Almost two sweet to eat?  If you think back to your golden years–let’s say, the ages of five to ten–there was almost no such thing as ‘too sweet’.  Cotton candy, bubble gum, chocolate bars, sour gummies, jelly beans and the like could be eaten with wild abandon without a care in the world.  There may have been a  a blaring sugar high followed by a roaring tummy ache, but who even remembers those things?  Now, most of us have perhaps developed palettes that cannot handle too much sugar.  We are the same way when it comes to certain foods, especially dishes that feature fruit.  The best part of the dish is the fruit, so make sure everyone knows it.  Fall’s apples are great right now, and they will continue to pop up all over the place through the season.  Leave out just a bit of the extra sugar, and they will show you who’s the boss.
Sugar in most desserts is malleable.   You can adjust it to your tastes, especially when it comes to desserts.  Depending on the recipe, you can also experiment with honey, agave nectar, brown rice syrup, etc. to see if you like how they satisfy your sweet tooth.  In this case, we just barely have 1/4 cup of combined sweeteners (powdered sugar, granulated white sugar, maple syrup and brown sugar) in the entire recipe. You can really taste the apples, which is the best part.   Sweet apples combined with the usual spice suspects combined with a super flakey cream cheese pastry, and it’s like Penn & Teller are pointing their magic wands all over your mouth’s taste buds.  Perhaps we speak in hyperbole too often.  You be the judge.