Cherry Hand Pies : ABC July 2013

I am so late with this month's bake at Avid Bakers Challenge (ABC)! Two days more before the linky closes. Well, I have a good reason for being late, my 18 year old oven finally gave up and I am without an oven for a couple of weeks. Yeah, it was torturing, out of baking action for a couple of weeks!! Now that I finally have my new oven, I am back with a baking vengeance! LOL! Looking at everyone's linky at ABC, I am practically drooling over their delicious pies. And with great reviews from everyone too, so I am definitely not going to miss this one, even if I should miss the deadline, I would still make this, sooner or later!

This month's bake, Blueberry Hand Pies is from King Arthur Flour website, here. I have some frozen blueberries in my freezer, but have used a can of cherry pie filling which I bought quite sometime ago. 

Just as the other ABC bakers' review on these pies, these are excellent! The pastry crust is so buttery, flaky, tender, crispy and delicious!

I used the food processor to mix the dough. The only changes I made was to substitute the sour cream with homemade yoghurt. When I mixed the butter into the flour, the mixture was crumbly with pea-sized crumbs just as the recipe says. It was when I mixed in the yoghurt, the mixture starts to turn very soft and sticky!! The dough was kinda soft and sticky, like the texture of a very thick batter when making cookies! I was really worried that it would turn out a total failure. Especially so when I've read from my fellow bakers at ABC, their dough was kinda dry! Mine was totally the opposite! Well, let's just hope for the best. I actually left the dough in the refrigerator overnight, did not plan to, but was not feeling well that day, and decided to bake the pies the next day.

The next afternoon, took the dough out and left it at room temperature for about 15 minutes to soften it slightly. I placed a big sheet of plastic over the dough to roll it out as it was sticking to the rolling pin as the dough was very soft. But with some light dusting of flour over the dough really helps. When the dough was cut to size, it was so soft and fragile that I was afraid that when I filled it up with the filling, I would have difficulty in transferring it to the baking pan. So I placed one piece of dough onto the baking pan and did the assembling of the pie directly on the pan. I made the rest of the pie this way and got to handle the dough very gently! However, I did not sprinkle any sanding sugar on the pies before baking, as I prefer them this way.

Brush the top with egg wash,  and off into the oven they went for 20-22 minutes, at 200C.

They bake up beautifully golden and looks so good! When I took the first bite, then the second, then the third, I was like thinking, all that extra "handle with care" seems to worth it! This is so delicious! The crust is so tender, buttery, flaky and crispy! A superb choice, Hanaa! 

For the full recipe, you may get it from KAF's website, here.

     

To view the other members bake, please stop by Avid Baker's Challenge (ABC). We are currently baking from King Arthur Flour website, if you are interested to join in, please contact Hanaa.