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!)