Apple Cranberry Sourdough Hand Pies
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Delightfully flaky and golden, these apple cranberry hand pies feature a tangy sourdough puff pastry filled with a warm spiced apple and cranberry filling. A portable treat that combines homemade comfort with a little festive flair. You'll love making these for an easy to share dessert next time you're invited to a potluck or barbecue!
If you're looking for other sourdough dessert ideas you might also like to try this sourdough cranberry cake or this sourdough apple crisp.
Why You'll Love This Recipe!
Fun To Share - This is such a fun way to share the sourdough love with perfectly portioned sourdough puff pastry hand pies filled with a yummy fruit filling!
Versatile - If you don't have fresh or frozen cranberries or they're out of season, you can easily substitute them with cherries, strawberries or even peaches. They all work really well in this recipe. Alternatively, you could even use a fruit jam to fill the hand pies with (I've used this Orange and Cranberry Jam and it works really well).
Ingredients
- All Purpose Flour
- Salt - just a pinch.
- Water - you'll need ice cold water for the puff pastry component and a bit more water to make the apple and cranberry filling.
- Sourdough Discard - your discard will need to come from a 100% hydration sourdough starter. Using discard that is around 24 hours old is perfect. You can read more about the difference between sourdough starter and sourdough discard here.
- Butter - cold, cubed, salted or unsalted butter is what you need for the best sourdough puff pastry. Like most of my recipes, I've chosen to use salted butter.
- Cranberries - I've used frozen cranberries to make this filling. You can use fresh cranberries if you have them available. If you don't, you can also substitute cherries, strawberries or even chopped peaches. You can even use a fruit jam to fill them with if you prefer.
- Green Apple - Use a green apple with the skin on to bring the pectin to the filling of these sourdough hand pies.
- Sugar - I've used white sugar to sweeten the fruit filling for these hand pies. I've also used some granulated sugar for sprinkling on the top of the pies before baking.
- Orange - You'll just need the zest of one orange to create a beautiful flavor and fragrance for the filling of your pies. Orange complements the apple and cranberries beautifully.
- Corn Starch - Corn starch (or corn flour depending on where you live) is used to thicken the fruit filling of these individually portioned dessert pies.
How To Make Sourdough Apple Cranberry Hand Pies
The first thing you need to do to make these sourdough apple cranberry hand pies is to create the sourdough puff pastry. It's so much easier than you might think. I've put full instructions in the recipe card below and you can also find loads of tips and tricks in this sourdough puff pastry recipe post too.
While the pastry is chilling, it's time to prepare the apple cranberry filling.
Prepare Apple Cranberry Filling
Add cranberries, diced apple, sugar and orange zest to a small saucepan and heat over medium heat for around 10 minutes.
Once the cranberries and apple have started to cook down a little, add the water and cornstarch together and then add to the saucepan.
Stir thoroughly and then simmer on medium to low heat for around 20 minutes or until the filling is jammy.
Set aside to cool on the counter and then into the fridge to chill until you're ready to use.
Roll Out The Pastry
Now it's time to laminate your sourdough puff pastry, so you'll need to take it out of the fridge and allow it to sit for around 10 minutes so it's not super hard.
Lightly flour your counter top and place the rectangle of dough in the middle. Using a rolling pin, start trying to push the dough out into a larger rectangle. You'll need to bring your muscles for this process!
Once the dough has been pushed out a bit, perform a letter fold. Turn the dough 180 degrees and perform another letter fold. Repeat this process 4 to 6 times. This creates the lamination that gives you the flakey layers puff pastry is famous for (I've added full illustrations of this process in the sourdough puff pastry post).
Now wrap the dough back up and place into the fridge for around 30 minutes.
Once you're ready to assemble the pies, lightly flour the counter top and place the dough in the middle of the surface. Roll the dough out into a rectangle or square. You want the dough to be around ½" thick (this portion of dough can be rolled out to around 30cm x 42cm or 12" x 16.5").
Cut the pastry into small rounds (you'll need 2 for each pie). You can re roll the excess pastry out and cut more rounds (these pies won't be as perfectly flaky but still good).
Add a tablespoon of filling to half of the pastry rounds. Egg wash the other half and place on top of the rounds with the filling.
Use your fingers to gently press them together and then crimp with a fork.
Place the filled sourdough hand pies onto a tray and then into the fridge for around 10 minutes while you preheat the oven to 220C (430F).
When you're ready to bake the pies, use a pastry brush to egg wash and then sprinkle with granulated sugar.
Bake sourdough hand pies for around 30 minutes or until golden and flakey.
How To Store + Freeze
Raw Puff Pastry - Unbaked sourdough puff pastry can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 48 hours after you've performed the letter folds and gotten it to "pre rolling" stage.
Fridge Before Baking - Once you've added the filling to the pies, they can be stored, unbaked in the refrigerator for up to 12 hours. Don't egg wash and sugar them until you are ready to bake.
After Baking - baked sourdough hand pies can be stored in an airtight container for up to three days. I like to store between layers of paper towel to ensure moisture doesn't settle on the pastry and soften it. You can gently warm the pies in the oven again if you want to to crisp them up.
Freezing Pies - filled, unbaked sourdough hand pies can be frozen for up to 2 months. Allow to thaw slightly before egg washing and baking as per normal instructions.
Sourdough Apple Cranberry Hand Pies
Equipment
- Kitchen Scale
- Rolling Pin
Ingredients
Sourdough Puff Pastry
- 200 g All Purpose Flour
- 5 g Salt (you can reduce if using salted butter)
- 40 g Water (ice cold)
- 100 g Sourdough Discard (unfed sourdough starter)
- 225 g Butter (cold, cubed - salted or unsalted)
Apple Cranberry Filling
- 100 g Cranberries (can be fresh or frozen)
- 120 g Green Apple (cored and diced)
- 120 g Sugar
- 1 Orange (zest only)
- 20 g Water
- 5 g Corn Starch
Topping
- 1 Egg (beaten with a little water for egg wash)
- 30 g Raw Sugar (for sprinkling)
Instructions
Prepare Puff Pastry
- Before you start this recipe, make sure you have already cubed your butter. I like to cube the butter and then sit it in the freezer while I get everything else ready, this way it won't melt as much when you go to use it.
- Add the salt to the all purpose flour and lightly stir together to ensure it's well distributed. Set this aside.
- Pour the ice cold water into your sourdough discard and whisk together with a fork until it's well combined. Set this aside.
- Now, take the flour and salt mixture and place the cold, cubed butter on top. Using your fingertips, lightly toss the butter cubes through the flour, using the flour to break the cubes of butter up.You don't really want to rub the butter into the flour at this stage, you just want the butter to be coated in flour.
- Now, add half the water and discard mixture to the flour and butter and start to bring the mixture together into a rough dough. Continue to do this, adding a little water and discard at a time, until the dough has come together in the bowl. You need to squeeze the dough together just enough so it's cohesive, but not so much that you smooth the butter out, you still want this in big chunks.You should still have some dry flour in the bowl, so be really cautious when adding the discard mixture.
- Once you're happy with the dough, tip it out onto a clean surface and push into a rough rectangle. The dough should still be fairly dry, not sticky, so you shouldn't need any extra flour at this stage.
- Wrap the rectangle of dough in plastic wrap or parchment paper and place in the fridge to chill. Ideally, you should leave the pastry in the fridge for at least 8 hours.
Prepare Apple Cranberry Filling
- While the pastry is chilling, prepare the apple cranberry filling. Add cranberries, diced apple, sugar and orange zest to a small saucepan and heat over medium heat for around 10 minutes.
- Once the cranberries and apple have started to cook down a little, add the water and cornstarch together and then add to the saucepan. Stir thoroughly and then simmer on medium to low heat for around 20 minutes or until the filling is jammy.
- Set aside to cool on the counter and then into the fridge to chill until you're ready to use.
Roll Out The Pastry
- Now it's time to laminate your sourdough puff pastry, so you'll need to take it out of the fridge and allow it to sit for around 10 minutes so it's not super hard.
- Lightly flour your counter top and place the rectangle of dough in the middle. Using a rolling pin, start trying to push the dough out into a larger rectangle. You'll need to bring your muscles for this process!
- Once the dough has been pushed out a bit, perform a letter fold (see above for fully illustrated instructions on how to perform a letter fold). Turn the dough 180 degrees and perform another letter fold. Repeat this process 4 to 6 times. This creates the lamination that gives you the flakey layers puff pastry is famous for.
- Now wrap the dough back up and place into the fridge for around 30 minutes.
- Once you're ready to assemble the pies, lightly flour the counter top and place the dough in the middle of the surface. Roll the dough out into a rectangle or square. You want the dough to be around ½" thick (this portion of dough can be rolled out to around 30cm x 42cm or 12" x 16.5").
- Cut the pastry into small rounds (you'll need 2 for each pie). You can re roll the excess pastry out and cut more rounds (these pies won't be as perfectly flaky but still good).
- Add a tablespoon of filling to half of the pastry rounds. Egg wash the other half and place onto the rounds with the filling.
- Use your fingers to gently press them together and then crimp with a fork.
- Place the filled sourdough hand pies onto a tray and then into the fridge for around 10 minutes while you preheat the oven to 220C (430F).
- When you're ready to bake the pies, use a pastry brush to egg wash and then sprinkle with granulated sugar.
- Bake sourdough hand pies for around 30 minutes or until golden and flakey.
Nutrition
