It’s fall and what would that glorious beautiful season be without a great apple pie recipe. 😉 That’s why I have an easy recipe for pretty apple shaped apple cinnamon hand pies. The hand pies are shaped and decorated as an apple and yes these are filled with one half of an apple too. I love to make this apple recipe for my family and friends. I always get lots of compliments on them too. You have to make these beauties asap .
Pretty apple shaped apple cinnamon hand pies -3 tips to incorporate butter into the flour without having a food processor.
Firstly for me is the dough as important as the filling. The pie dough has to be pliable and not too try because otherwise it’s so difficult to shape it. 😬 Secondly the taste needs to be subtly sweet and crisp and flaky. Otherwise the pie dough recipe is just no good.🙈 Here are 3 ways how you can incorporate your butter in to the flour without a food processor.
- If you have a pastry cutter just cut the cold butter into the flour until it looks like fine ground grain.
- Another great way to mix the butter into the flour ist to put the bowl with the flour mixture into your stand kitchen mixer with the whisk attached add the butter cubes and start to whisk slowly until everything looks like a fine pea sized mess. 😉
- The messiest way to do this ist to pinch, rub, squeeze and crush the flour with the butter with your fingertips together until small pea sized lumps form . This will take you about 10 minutes.😅
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How to shape those apple cinnamon hand pies .
- First of all I cut the pie dough into 2 parts, one larger and one smaller part.
- Now I’m going to roll out both parts with a pin until 2mm (1/8inch) thick. Before rolling and shaping the larger disk for the last time use a embossed rolling pin and roll it carefully with enough pressure to see the pattern over it.
- After that I’m going to start out with the small dough disk and cut out 8 circles that are 2cm larger in diameter than the diameter of the apple halves.
- I’m cutting out 8 circles on the larger disk that are 4 cm larger in diameter than the apple.
Hold on we are almost done!🙈
- Now take a small dough circle smear it with the cinnamon sugar butter but leaving out 1 cm.
- Place the hasselback cut apple half on the smeared dough circle brush cinnamon butter in the apple .
- Moisten the clean dough border with water.
- Finally pull the larger dough circle onto the apple and pinch the dough edges together.
- I trim the edges with a pastry wheel to make it look more pretty and even .
- Now I’m shaping the leaves , stems and blossom end and place them carefully onto the apple shaped hand pies. Moisten the decorating parts a little bit before sticking the m to the hand pies.
- Repeat this with all the other apple halves.
- When everything is done place the handles into the fridge for 30 minutes. The decoration and patterns shaped into the dough need to be cold to stay.
- Tadaa ! Thats it.❤️
Here is a little video for you on how to make these hand pies.
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Some thoughts and advices .
- These hand pies are best enjoyed with some creamy vanilla ice cream or half beaten lightly sweetened cream (add a sip of rum and vanilla sugar to the cream and make it a more adult thing 😉).
- If you don’t like the peel on the apples, no problem. Just peel the apples before you half, core and hasselback them.
- Before I brush the cinnamon butter on the smaller dough disk I sprinkle some flour over it. This way the juices of the apple and the butter thicken a little bit while baking. So good.
- You can freeze the baked apple hand pies for later. Just wrap them in cling film and put them into the freezer for up to 2 months. When thawed just put them for 10 minutes into the oven at 180C fan(360F) to crisp up.
I hope you make this delicious fall recipe really soon because I promise you it won’t be the last time you’ll make it.
Lastly if you make these pretty apple shaped cinnamon apple hand pies, be sure to leave a comment and/or give this recipe a rating! Above all, I love to hear from yo guys and always do my best to respond to each and every comment. And of course, if you do make this recipe, don’t forget to tag us on Instagram! Looking through the photos of recipes you all have made is my favorite .
Cinnamon hugs Nina
If you love apples here are some more apple recipes for you:
- Christmassy sourdough baked apple cake
- Apple galette with honey whiskey frangipane
- Antonias favorite apple pie
- Apple cinnamon crumble muffin
- Fancy pork tenderloin in puff pastry with caramelized apples and onions
- Autumnly apple cider and cheese soup with pretzel chips
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Pretty Cinnamon Apple Hand Pies
Ingredients
Dough
- 220 g unsalted butter cut into small cubes
- 440 g flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 eggs large
- cold water if needed
- 2 tbsp sugar
Filling
- 4 apples small to medium sized, cut in half, cored
- 150 g butter room temperature
- 150 g brown sugar
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp cardamom optional
- 1/4 tsp cloves grounded, optional
Egg wash
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsp milk
Instructions
Dough
- In a medium sized bowl mix together flour, salt and sugar.
- Add the cold butter cubes and incoporate them into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter, food processor or, in rubbing the flour mixture into the butter until everything is very fine in size.
- Add the eggs and knead the dough until everything comes together to pliable dough. Don't knead the dough to long just let it come together.
- Attention: if the dough seems to dry and tense add some water. 1tbsp at the time. Don't add to much.
- Wrap the dough into plastic wrap (cling film) and put it into the fridge for one hour.
Filling
- Mix together butter, sugar and the spices. Either with a spoon or an electric mixer.
- Now take the halved and cored apples and slice every half length wise about every 2mm(1/8 inch) . But don't cut it the whole way trough. The apple half should stay intact and not cut apart. It's like making hasselback apples instead of hasselback potatoes 😉
Put everything together
- Take the pie dough out of the fridge, cut it in half and roll every half out about 0,5cm (1/4 inch) thick.
- Optional: Take one rolled out pie halve and roll over it with an embossed rolling pin.
- Now cut out 8 circles that are about 2cm larger in diameter than your apple half and 8 circles that are 4cm in diameter large than your apple halves.
- Take the smaller dough circles and coat them with the cinnamon sugar butter filling, but leave out the1 cm of the border.
- Place the apple halves onto the smeared dough circles and coat the rest of the apple with the cinnamon butter.
- Now moisten the edges of the dough circles and put the larger circles on top. Pinch the edges together. Now repeat that process with all the other apple halves.
- With the rest of the dough form leaves and stems and decorate the apple shaped hand pies with them.
- Put the hand pies back into the fridge for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 180C (350F) fan.
- Place the hand pies on a baking sheet covered with a baking paper, brush them with egg wash (egg and 2 tbsp milk mixed together)and bake for 45-60 minutes.
- Leave them to cool on a rack.
- These are best enjoyed still warm, with a sprinkle of powdered sugar and a scoop of ice cream.
