Cherry hand-pies Valentine’s Day edition

Cherries. I’ve never been a fan of them. I lecture my children (and my husband) almost daily about trying new foods and to at least try things before you say that you don’t like them. At some point I realized that I am being a hypocrite. Not actually recalling a time where I have tasted cherries, I decided I must take the time to taste this sweet little fruit. Lets just say this story has a sweet and happy ending.

Not only have  I never tried a cherry, I’ve never even begun to clean or process them. Is it completely crazy that I had to Google what to do with them? after many little tricks of how to pit a cherry, I ended up digging a sweet tea spoon out of my drawer and digging them out. I found this to be the very best and quickest method. Me:1 Cherry:0

After pitting the cherries I decided to treat them like most other fruit compote by simply adding a little sugar, water, and an acid to balance out the tart and sweet flavors.

The crust is something I usually leave to Pillsbury, however this time I decided I may as well go all out and do the entire recipe on my own.

With a simple dough rolled out, a heart shape template, baking time and…

We have some sweet little cherry hand-pies perfect in time for this Valentine’s Day.

After making some mini hand pies I tried my hand at making a mini pie in a cast iron skilled. I must say cherries are much better than I ever imagined them to be. This will be a recipe that I will for sure be making again. Yum!

Cherry filling:

2 cups pitted cherries

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

1 tsp lemon juice

pinch of salt

1/2 tbsp corn starch

Combined all ingredients into a saucepan Bring up to a boil on medium-high heat.Continue boil for 7 minutes them reduce to simmer.

Take 1/2 tbs corn starch and 1/2 tbsp of cherry juice from sauce pan and whisk together in a small bowl (this process as apposed to just adding the corn starch directly to the cherries will prevent lumps.)  Once whisked together and is smooth add to sauce pan.

Continue simmering for 10. minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Once cooled store away or immediately fill pie shell.

Pie crust:

Ingredients-

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp salt

2 sticks of frozen butter

1/4 COLD water

Grate 2 sticks of frozen butter into a food possessor, add flour and salt. Pulse until combined; Slowly add water while pulsing until a dough forms. Drop dough out onto a piece of plastic wrap. Cover while slightly compressing to form a flat disk ;refrigerate for 1 hour.

Roll out on a floured surface using a rolling pin to 1/4″ thick. Using a heart template, cut heart shapes out of dough and place on cookie sheet. Top hearts with 1 tbsp of cherry mixture and top with another heart shape. Using a fork compress sides together. Brush tops with an egg wash.

Bake at 375F for 30 minutes or until tops are golden brown.

Related posts:

1. Old fashioned candies & a powdered sugar mold
2. Valentine’s Day ideas
3. very berry blackberry cobbler
4. Salt dough recipe and a deal you can’t pass up!
5. hand-made gift idea: homemade peanut butter and announcing the participants in our super mega giveaway