Make My Love Heart Shaped
Day Thirteen: Shape Your Love (hand pies!!)
My family says they’re not tiring of heart shaped things: but maybe that’s because I’ve been making Pie! These lovely little fruit and chocolate tarts were made using a hand-pie mold I bought on a whim at the grocery store. It’s made by Nordic Ware and was 50% off: I figured, if it didn’t work, it was the price of a mocha. I could afford to risk the price of mocha, right? (And yes, many, many purchase decisions are made by the answer to the question, “How many Starbuck’s Mochas could I buy for that?!)
The press worked “just ok”. As you can see from my pies, the edges aren’t that crisp. I’m not sure if that is an error on my part or not, as the directions were pretty skimpy on the packaging. But I did like the bowl of the heart press: it made filling the pie easy. When you’re making hand pies and the bottom crust is on a flat board, it can be difficult to “mound” up the fillings without getting spillage everywhere. So, I guess it’s a trade off.
When I use the press again, I think I’ll also omit the little cut-out heart on top. It’s cute in theory, but in practice it made removing the pies from the mold cumbersome.
I filled these pies with good chocolate chips and raspberries (Geo had raspberries and Apricot jam, because he’s not a fan of chocolate.) — but your options really are endless. Especially if you don’t use that decorative cut-out! Any bit of fruit and chocolate, or jam and finely diced nuts. If you’re really brave, you could even use a custard filling of some sort.
Just a note, these pies can handle a lot more filling than I used! I placed about 5 raspberries and a few chocolate chips in mine: wish I had doubled the fruit for a better fruit to crust ratio. It will look like a lot, but in reality: there is a lot of crust in a hand-pie. That’s stating the obvious in retrospect — but at the time, the small amount that I used “looked” like enough. In the future, I will stuff those babies!
I baked these at 425 for about 10 minutes. Which are the directions for my pie crust recipe. Any pie crust will work, even store-bought. Use your favorite or experiment. If you come up with a chocolate pie crust, let me know.
Such a hit! And a sweet way to give your love. Of course, you don’t have limit your heart-shaped love to fruit pie. There’s always pizza-pie! (which, for the record, is on the menu tomorrow!)
Pie Crust Valentine Cookies
Day Seven: Be Sweet — Pie Crust Cookies
Hello friends. We’re still snowed in here and we’ve been joying watching the Olympics and keeping the fire going in the fireplace. So cozy! After stocking up on provisions yesterday (we’re waiting for the 3rd part of this storm to hit later today), I decided to bake some lovely hand pies for us to enjoy during the Opening Ceremony. I’ll post those later, but I thought I’d share what I did with scrap pie dough.
When IZ was a child, his mother used to sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on pie dough scraps when she made pie. He remembers those bits fondly and usually asks, “What are you going to do with the scraps?” (hint hint) so, I love experimenting and making these little cookies for him. And they’re so versatile! I rarely make them same way twice. This time, I used dried dates and semisweet chocolate, but you can use any dried fruit/nut/or chocolate combination. The trick is to finely chop up your fillings –especially if you’re using smaller cookie cutters. The finer the ingredients, the better they incorporate into the dough and the easier it is to cut your cookies.
I had left over apricot jam glaze, so I used it on these cookies. But you can also glaze them with an egg white and sprinkle sugar on top. Or, leave them plain.
Use heart cookie cutters or, if you’re in a rush, you can block the pie dough and cut little squares or rectangles. These make cute dunking cookies for tea!
