This is how my daughter puts her stamp on her after school treat: with simple and sweet Frosted Berry Hand Pies straight from her hand to her mouth.
Smudge is a big helper in the kitchen and she’s the first one to don my apron, and then ask me why I’m not wearing mine and laughs hysterically as if she’s watching an episode of The Three Stooges with her daddy. She definitely has his sense of humor. Personally, I think they could both use a comic relief lesson with Curly. Nyuk, nyuk.
While I’ll be away for a girl’s trip weekend with my 15 of my college besties—a trip we’ve taken every single year since we graduated and of which the number is embarrassingly higher than the age of which we left our undergrad status with diploma in hand—my husb G Dawg will be picking up our Smudge from a week at Girl Scout camp in the mountains above Park City, UT.
This was them at drop-off. Do Girl Scouts have an America’s Next Top Model badge?
Given it’s Girl Scout camp, I’m assuming she’ll have picked up a few more clues or two on how to win a showdown with a moose in the wilderness or how to tie a half hitch knot. And more importantly how to untie it.
What I really want her to gain is a little more self-sufficiency, like the desire to spend even more time in the kitchen and take a load off of mama. Like making and baking her own after school treats. Like this recipe for Frosted Berry Hand Pies.
Like, like, like. It’s her favorite word too. She’s such a valley girl.
I had a secret affair with Pop-Tarts as a kid. Secret only because my mom never bought them. But my friend Kym’s mom did. And she had all of the naughty flavors schmeared with that frosting that doesn’t really melt even when it gets hot and that were good only if you ate them directly from the toaster because if you didn’t the edges of the crust would get hard as a rock and the innards turn into cardboard glue. How did I ever find them appealing?
But home made hand pies are a different breed.
Buttery and flaky, the crust is pretty much the key here, but the fact that it’s so incredibly simple to pull together is its real appeal. Any fruit will do, or try with a peanut butter and jam, or ham and cheese for a savory edition and you won’t find the taste of dry cardboard in the lot.
Frosted Berry Hand Pies
Ingredients
For hand pies:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup 2 sticks unsalted butter
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 4-5 tablespoons water
- 1 egg yolk and whites separated
- ¾ cup berry jam
For sugar glaze:
- ½ cup powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon milk
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
- In food processor fitted with steel blade, pulse flour, butter, salt and sugar 10-12 times or until butter is consistency of small peas. Add water and pulse 5-7 more times or until dough starts to come together. Turn out onto floured surface and shape into 2 round discs. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 450°F. Roll out dough to ¼-inch thickness, and cut into 3 ½-inch by 7-inch pieces. Each dough round should yield 4 pieces. Lightly brush edges of dough squares with egg and spoon 1 tablespoon jam on one side of dough within egg-basted edges. Fold dough in half and crimp edges with fingers and then press down edges of dough, about ¼ inches, with the tines of fork.
- Place hand pies on baking sheet lined with parchment paper and brush tops with egg wash and bake for 15 minutes or until crust is golden. Remove from oven and allow cooling.
- While hand pies are resting, mix sugar glaze by adding powdered sugar, milk and vanilla to medium-sized bowl and whisk to mix well. If mixture is too thick, add more milk, ¼ teaspoon at a time, to thin.
- When hand pies are cooled, drizzle the tips with sugar glaze and serve.
So while I’m revisiting my college days this weekend reliving the good old days while partaking of jello shots and water games, take some time out of your lovely weekend and check out a few of this week’s Friday Faves.
Happy weekending friends!
One of my favorite cross-platform (phone, laptop, desktop, mobile) apps just keeps evolving, make a note of Evernote Food.
12 countries. 107 restaurants. $275,000 to eat your way through 3-star Michelin-rated restaurants. I’ll take two.
Fire it up. Over 50 Buffalo and BBQ recipes.
Or parcel it out. 50 Amazing Zucchini Recipes.
20 great tips for writing a blog post.
A beautifully written truth: There’s only one thing you should regret in life.
So long wine and whiskey, say hello to the world’s most extensive water tasting menu. Only in L.A.
The only way for any sweet tooth to celebrate Shark Week.
The side-splitting trials and tribulations of being pregnant with George Clooney’s twins.
10 tricks every Mac user should try.
Very funny, in that ironic maybe too close to home kind of way: 23 Stages of Making Friends on Twitter.
Looks like we can’t get enough cherries right now, with recipes here, here and here.
How to structure your 9-5 when you’re a freelancer.
Thanks to their latest update, I’ve gone back to one of my original iPhone image editing favorites. And it’s a goodie.
And a list of this week’s virtual dinner from around the food blogs, summer style ala Italia.
Peach and Thyme Spritzer
Simple Balsamic Melon Salad
Heirloom Tomato and Mozzarella Tart
Linguine and Clam Puttanesca with Burrata and Basil
Almond Amaretto Panna Cotta
Zucchini Coconut Lunchbox Bread (maybe not Italian themed but it sounds sooooo good!)
Have a grand weekend, arrivederci!
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How have I missed these all these months?! I like Smudge’s thinking on after school snackery! She’s a girl after my own heart!
This is the BEST afterschool treat! My mom usually gave me carrots for after school. Ugh. So can I come over after work to devour these? :)
These look way better than the boxed pop tarts. I loved pop tarts as a kid! I would eat the s’mores and brown sugar pop tarts as snacks cold. Talk about cardboardy, but I didn’t care.
These are delicious looking. I’m thinking peach filled!
Seriously, I am going to go back to school just so I can have these as an after school snack. Gorgeous!
I, too, was lucky enough to have a friend whose parents bought all the delicious treats that my parents didn’t buy! AND SO MANY OF THEM! They would have jars full of treats on the counter, I never understood how they weren’t always going empty!
These look positively divine
And camp was like, my favorite thing when I was young!
I love all of it!
These pies are too cute, love that glaze!
I had an affair with pop tarts when I was younger, too! But I wasn’t smart enough to keep it a secret… These look like true gems – I really love that it looks like you used raspberry jam, which is perfect for sweet end-of-the-summer tarts. Fabulous Friday roundup, Heidi!
So simple, love it!! Pinned!
Well, those are just the happiest snack ever.
A water tasting menu? Glad I left L.A. when I did:). But these hand pies…summer inspired for sure!!
These look so good!!
I think I had pop tarts, maybe twice as a kid. I knew my mom would never buy them, and I pretty much knew better than to even ask for them. These hand pies, though….totally different category! These look amazing!
I am the chief of the anti-pop tart department and luckily the kids don’t even know what they are…yet unless we have some sneaky neighbors? I have bigger problems fighting off Lucky Charms and Frosty Flakes. I’m such a mean dad :) I may branch out and make these though…
Love your lists. Love those hand pies. And cherries and berries, so good this time of year!
Mmm. Love hand pies! And I’m in love with the scenery your little Smudge gets to see during the week at camp. I was a Girl Scout counselor for 5 summers in/out of college and I still go back every summer to soak in a little of that magic.
I ate poptarts like it was my job when I was a kid LOL Thse look delicious!
these look so amazing – that icing! I want one for breakfast right now.
Hand piiiiiiies, yesssssss. Now I need to shove about 400 in my face.
Thanks for the link love! Hehehhehe.
I love pie, especially those you can carry around in your hand. Yum!
Oh. My. Goodness.
Love these, Heidi.
And Smudge and her friends? Toooo funny and cute!
I love little hand pies, they are so cute!! Plus, extremely delicious! Hope you have a great weekend!
Loving these! Hope you have a great weekend too!! xo
loving these! Miss you Heidi
These are too adorable for words. Have so much fun this weekend with your friends!! Love that tradition!!
Pop tarts were forbidden in my house too! I pretty much lived for the hangouts at friends’ houses where I could shove one of those chocolate s’more, ridiculous, actually-way-too-firm rectangles down my gullet. There was a total recognition of an overall MEH taste even at that age, but it felt sooo rebellious. Thanks for the link love, Heidi! Hope you have a lovely trip too :)