Blackberry Hand Pies
Scraps taken from Epicurious, Smitten Kitchen, and a dream I had about Brandon Routh once.
On the second attempt, I got rid of the cream cheese filling. It’s always hard to say goodbye to cream cheese, but I couldn’t really taste it in the original and it made everything messier. Without it, I was able to fit a lot more blackberry filling in each pie.
I also added a little more sugar. I’ve noticed that cool grownups like to complain about how “most desserts are too sweet.” So, I pretended I was a cool grownup and used a very conservative amount of sugar in the original. But then I ended up with a product that was more sour than sweet. I settled on about 1/3 cup (just over 5 Tablespoons) which I think created a better (still not-too-sweet) balance. You can add more or less, according to your personal taste.
Ingredient note: My new favorite recipe for pie crust is from Serious Eats. The method is a little mad-sciency, but it works for me! I have never made another crust so flaky and tender. If you don’t have a food processor, Smitten Kitchen has a good, traditional all-butter alternative.
Ingredients
- Favorite pie crust recipe, enough for a pie with a double crust (see note above for recommendation)
- 3/4 pound blackberries (about 2 cups)
- 4-6 Tablespoons sugar (Plus extra for topping)
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1 egg, beaten with 1 Tablespoon water for egg wash
Instructions
- Heat oven to 400.
- To make the filling: Combine blackberries, sugar and flour in a medium saucepan, and stir to coat berries. Simmer over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the blackberries release their juices and the mixture thickens slightly – 5 to 10 minutes. Add lemon juice and extra sugar to taste, if needed. Set filling aside to cool.
- Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper or silicon mats.
- To shape the pies: Flour the counter top like you mean it, and roll out half of pie dough in a rectangular-ish shape, a little thicker than 1/8th of an inch. Slice into 6 squares, as large as possible. Mine were probably about 3 or 4 inches across, but don’t stress about uniformity. They’re rustic.
- Brush the edges of each square with egg wash. Put 1 heaping Tablespoon of blackberry filling towards the corner of each square, then fold the dough over it, in half diagonally, to make a triangle. Seal the edges, crimping with the tines of a fork if you want.
- Cut one or two vents in the top of each pie – I found that a small kitchen scissors was the least frustrating tool for this task, but a sharp paring knife should work too. Brush the tops with egg wash, then sprinkle generously with sugar.
- Move pies to prepared baking sheet, then stick them in the freezer while you roll out and fill the other half of the dough. Put the second-round pies in the freezer while the first-round pies go in the oven.
- Bake pies for 20-30 minutes, until they’re golden-brown on the top and dark brown at the edges.
- Let them cool on a wire rack for at least 20 minutes. Eat them warm, or cool them completely to room temperature before putting them in a bag to bring to the church picnic. These are best (crispiest and flakiest) the day they’re made, but they’ll keep for a day or two in an airtight container at room temperature, and a day or two longer in the fridge.
Sprinkle Fix 
Super entertaining, as always! I loved that Brandon was in it! Nice touch😉
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This is such a great website! I’ve really been enjoying reading all these great adventures in baking, and this story was so much fun too. So, I decided to challenge myself by attempting to bake something from this wonderful site. I’ve never baked a dessert before (I know… how shameful for a 38 year old). I was definitely nervous, but I’m always up for a challenge and new adventures too! My sisters were going to visit this past weekend, and I hadn’t seen them in a while because of COVID, so I thought I’d try to do something special for the occasion and checked Sprinkle Fix for inspiration. I decided on the blackberry hand pies because they looked so delicious and because, once I began reading the post, I just couldn’t stop! Plus, I wanted to also experience the thrill of creating a high-stakes situation for myself in the process. Okay.. Maybe that part was inadvertent.
The day of, my sister Karina called me to let me know she and my three other sisters they were less than a mile away my apartment just two minutes after I left to the grocery store to buy the blackberries. After some Olympic-level speedskating through the icy sidewalks in my Chucks (I don’t recommend Chucks on below-zero wind-chill days) to and from the store in 15 mins, I was able to make it back in time before my sisters were able to find parking and get out of the car. First Mission: ACCOMPLISHED. If this were a legit thriller with high stakes too, the pressure would’ve still been high from then on since I was supposed to have the pies ready before they arrived, but my sisters are awesome and didn’t mind that I wasn’t ready, so… it was actually quite a pleasant baking experience 😊 But this was also very important to me, so to explain just how important this all felt to me, let’s say Brandon Routh** had kidnapped my sisters, tied them each to a chair, and was shooting laser beams that could split them in half out of his eyes that were inching closer to them! And the only way they could be saved is if I baked delicious blackberry handpies! Gahhh!
I made the dough a few days before (don’t worry I stored it in the freezer until the night before when I transferred it to the fridge and took it out 30 mins before use, as instructed), so that cut a lot of time off. So now I had to make the blackberry filling. Brandon’s maniacal laughter as he maneuvered the beams closer and closer to mi hermanas was a bit distracting, but my military training kicked in and I was able to stay composed as I continued my mission. (Side bar: I’m sure Brandon Routh is a good dude, so let’s just say that this Brandon is the Scott Pilgrim vs The World version. Yeah, that guy was kind of a douche, so let’s go with that. Cool? Okay cool.) The filling was very delicious! As soon as I tasted it during the cooking process, I realized that this story might have a happy ending!
Next, I rolled out the dough and became a little too concerned with the fact that I wasn’t forming a perfect rectangle. My drive for perfection was costing me valuable time! I think my sister Karina noticed the struggle in my face, so she reminded me… “The site says ‘they’re rustic!’” Thanks, sis! Brandon did not like that. He scowled, said something about how the pies better be vegan, and began inching his eyeball beams towards my sisters a lot faster! I grabbed my pizza cutter and did the best that I could. As long as they’re delicious, Jorge. Squares, egg wash, filling, folding over to make triangles! It’s all coming together so quickly now! I crimped them, grabbed my kitchen scissors, vented them, added the egg wash, and SprinkleFix’ed them with a fair amount of sugar. “Into the freezer!” I exclaimed before I repeated the process for the second batch.
Now it’s time for the oven! First batch went in. And then we waited… After 25 mins of listening to Brandon talk about how curds and whey make up 90% percent of our brains since we’re not vegan as he attempted to explain why he’s so powerful, I took the pies out, and they looked great! Perfectly golden brown on top, and dark brown at the edges. Exactly how Caitlin described they should look! Since I had made pretty good time, Brandon shut off his deadly eye beams and said that I now have to pass the final test before my sisters can be free. Second mission: ACCOMPLISHED.
After the pies cooled, it was time for the final mission. The taste test and potential final battle! Brandon flew over and hovered over me before he declared “if these are good, I will let your sisters go, and you all can have a great night spending quality time together as a family. But if they suck, I will use my vegan powers to destroy you all!” I nodded my head and smiled because I just knew they’d be good. So, I distributed a hand pie to everyone, so we could all tell if he’d be full of sh*t or not in his taste test, and… “Oh, these are actually scrumptious,” said Brandon as he came back down to the ground (and met me at eye-level *clears throat*…). “But I will still destroy you!” He blinked his eyes to activate his deadly beams, but nothing happened! He tried to fly, but only hopped. “My… My powers! What did you do to me?!”
As I walked over to free my sisters, I told him there was egg on the pies. Next thing I know, as we all stood and cheered the delicious pies, Brandon was being whisked away by the vegan police for abusing his vegan powers. Mi hermanas and I exclaimed in unison “Thank you, Sprinkle Fix!” as we jumped in the air, hand pies raised to the sky.
El Fin.
Okay, so that was a lot haha. I seriously did not intend for my review to go that route, but that’s okay 😊 That’s one of the reasons I really enjoy this site. The stories are so fun and creative that you can’t help but have the joy rub off on you after you read each post. I’m sure there are other people out there that find Caitlin’s writing so imaginative and endearing, because her stories are also full of heart and so humorous. Plus, the drawings. I mean… Come on! The best! So, I just wanted to give a big Thank You to Caitlin for helping to inspire someone who’s never baked a dessert before to be successful in that experience, while also having a blast during the process! No joke, one of my sister’s said that these were “bakery-level” hand pies. In total, 8 people tasted these baked goods, and they all said they were truly very delicious! So again, a huge Thank You to Caitlin for helping to spread some much-needed joy and positivity to SO many people because of her site during a time when we could all use some of that good energy. You are greatly appreciated!
**The views and opinions expressed about Brandon Routh in the comment section are those of the commenter and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the author of this site. Any content provided in the comments are of the commentor’s opinion and are not intended to malign any Brandons, Routh family members, or Brandon Routh himself. This includes any non-famous Brandon Rouths or doppelgängers.
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