The other day as I left work, I got the idea in my head that I needed—absolutely, positively needed—pumpkin pie. Not just any pumpkin pie, but a hand pie.
Hand pies are, obviously, small, hand held pies. And pumpkin pie, traditionally, is not a great filling. The recipe that most people use for pumpkin pie is quite runny with a lot of egg and cream. The entire drive home from work, I found myself thinking of ways to make pumpkin pie filling without evaporated milk and 5 eggs. There had to be a way, right?
I ended up (of course) searching Pinterest and cobbling together 3 different recipes for pumpkin hand pies. They were super simple to make and even though I tried to keep the portions smile, I made 12 hand pies and have enough filling in my fridge for at least 12-24 more. (That’s… a lot of hand pies.)
(I know this isn’t a great photo. Low light, what can I say?)
Here’s my recipe:
2 rolls of refrigerated pie crust (you can make your own, but I had store bought in my fridge)
1/2 cup of pumpkin puree
1/4 cup Greek yogurt
1 egg
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cloves
Egg wash (1 egg + water)
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Then, start by unrolling your pie crust and rolling it a bit with a rolling pin to flatten it completely and thin it out a bit more. Then, using a pumpkin cookie cutter, cut out pie shells. Arrange half the shells on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. The other half, cut out jack-o-lantern faces or “pumpkin marks”. Put about 1-2 teaspoon of filling (it will depend on the size of your cookie cutter; my pumpkins were quite small, so 1 teaspoon was almost too much!) in the center of the bottom shells, brush with egg wash, then top with the decorated pie shell. Press around the edge with a fork. Repeat until you’re out of dough or filling*. Brush tops with egg wash. Bake for about 10-15 minutes or until browned.
*Extra filling can be stored for about a week or so. I ended up baking mine in muffin cups on top of graham crackers!
You can also sprinkle the tops with cinnamon sugar after brushing with egg wash; I am going to try that next time and see if it makes them just a bit prettier.
That’s it! Simple, easy, delicious hand pies! I am actually going to try doubling the filling recipe and using it in an entire pie, as I like the taste of the filling a lot more than usual pumpkin pie. It is less sickly sweet and more nuanced, thanks to the Greek yogurt and maple syrup. Let me know if you try these—I’d love to know what you’d change to make them better!
