Chocolate Hand Pies

I will not eat the commercial hand pies. They do not taste like they used to taste. Cheaper imitation-food ingredients tend to do that. The recipe is altered from a Rachel Ray recipe. I divided the chocolate into semi-sweet and dark chocolates. The flavor is delicious, better than semi-chocolate on its own.

I also used coconut oil pastry and baked the pies instead of deep-frying them. The chocolate mousse-like filling is good on its own or used as a regular chocolate pie filling I was afraid the dough would open up, ending up with deep-fried chocolate goo. Or I am a coward. The baked came out lovely. If you want the original recipe, search for Deep-fried Chocolate Hand Pies by Rachel Ray.

You can find my recipe here - Chocolate Hand Pies with more images showing how to put the pies together.

Chocolate Hand Pies

1 cup Half & Half
1 cup whipping cream
4 oz. semisweet chocolate
4 oz. dark chocolate
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup arrowroot (or cornstarch if you like that stuff)
2 tbsp unsalted butter (I used salted, the only kind I use)
triple-batch of the coconut oil pie crust recipe ( recipe at the very end)

In a pot, whisk together FIRST the sugar and arrowroot, or it will lump. Trust me here. Same goes for cornstarch if using that. Add half & half, whipping cream, and chocolates. Bring to almost a boil over medium heat and cook, whisking, until thickened; about 1 minute or so.

Remove from heat and stir in butter. Let cool slightly. Put in a glass bowl and press plastic warp on surface to prevent it from "skinning" and refrigerate until cold- 2 hours or overnight. I left it overnight to be quite firm.

Make a triple batch of coconut oil pie crust. Note: a quadruple batch would be better, but it was nice to have the thick filling as a stand-alone dessert. Your choice. Divide dough into 18 balls, 24 balls if quadrupling. Cover balls to keep moist while making each hand pie.

Roll a ball of dough between two layers of plastic wrap into a 6" circle.
Spoon/glop about 1/4 cup of the filling in the center of the dough.
Fold dough over to within 1/2" of the opposing edge. Press around the edge to seal.
Fold the remaining 1/2" of dough over the sealed edge and crimp.

Place on a parchment-line cookie sheet and stab with a shish-kebab skewer, or whatever hole-making tool you want- making 3 holes to let out steam. I only did one. That caused a couple of the hand pies to vomit chocolate out the seam, not having enough of an outlet on top. Oops. I got 9 pies per cookie sheet.

Place the cookie sheet in the refrigerator to keep the filling chilled as you make the other pies.

Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C). Bake pies for 25 minutes or until lightly browned.

Put pies in the refrigerator to keep until all of them are eaten. With only the two of us, we had dessert for a good while.

If you want to fry them... Heat 3 cups of oil (coconut, vegetable, shortening or lard), to 375°F (190°C) in fry pan, using a frying thermometer to check the temp. Add 2 pies and fry, turning 2 or 3 times, until deep golden brown, or about 3 minutes. Let cool 15 minutes on paper towels to drain any oil. You can dust these with powdered sugar, which I find an overkill.

Coconut Oil Pie Crust

2 cups flour
3/4 cup coconut oil
1/4 to 1 tsp salt (to taste, or leave out if wanted)
4 to 8 tbsp cold or ice water. Amount depends on humidity, sun spots, warts...

Put flour and salt, (if using salt), in bowl. With a pastry blender, cut in coconut oil. I do NOT use a food processor for this. It makes a tough crust. With a fork, add water a few tablespoonfuls at a time, gently forking in, until the dough holds together nicely but not too wet or sticky.

Roll out between two pieces of plastic wrap or one of those pastry bag-things. You want to barely handle the dough and use as little extra flour as possible or the dough, like normal pastry dough, is too dry to form a nice crust and cracks when being put in the pie plate. Roll to fit a 9" pie plate, press to fit plate. Make your normal crust, I do the crimp thing instead of the fork-press thing, then stab the sides and bottom with a fork to prevent the crust from puffing up. If you have one of those things to lay inside of the crust to prevent this, go for it.

Unfilled pie crust is baked at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. For filled pies, bake as the recipe directs. Makes one 9" crust. Double if you are making a double-crusted pie. (duh) This recipe can also be tripled or quadrupled without any loss of tenderness, etc., like some recipes can do when enlarged.