Spiced Apple Hand Pies

Make the pie dough. Stir flour, sea salt, and turbinado sugar in a medium mixing bowl. Chop the cold butter into small cubes about the size of a thumbnail and add these to the flour mixture, mixing to coat the butter cubes in flour. Use your fingertips to massage the butter into the flour, smashing each cube into smaller pieces about the size of a pea. Taking the time to massage the butter into the flour will help prevent most of the gluten formation, yielding a flaky, tender crust.

The dough should start to come together, and now it’s time to add the water. Slowly drizzle the ice water (preventing any ice cubes from falling in) over the dough and begin pulling it together with your hands as the water moistens the flour. If the butter was massaged in well enough, 1/3 cup water should be just enough. If you need more, add it half a tablespoon at a time.

When all the water is added and the dough forms a shaggy lump (for lack of better terms), turn it out onto a clean and lightly floured flat surface. Form it into a ball as best you can and then use a lightly floured rolling pin to flatten the dough until about 1/2 inch thick, maintaining the round shape. Use a bench scraper or large sharp knife to cut the dough into four quadrants, then stack them on top of each other and roll out the dough again. Repeat the process 2 more times. This step is essential to create tender flaky layers. Form the dough into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

While the dough chills, prepare the apple filling. Make sure the apples are finely chopped—you want the cubes to be roughly the size of a fingernail, as this will allow more filling to fit into each hand pie and more of the spice mixture to coat the surface of the apples. Basically, a more finely chopped apple means more flavor penetration throughout the entire hand pie. Toss the chopped apples with the apple cider vinegar, sugar, and spices, then cover and let sit at room temperature for the remainder of the hour.

Preheat oven to 400ºF and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Unwrap the chilled pie dough after at least 1 hour and place it onto a clean and lightly floured flat surface. Carefully whack the dough a few times with the rolling pin (yes, seriously) to soften it a bit. Roll out the dough into a large rectangle about 1/8 inch thick. If you have a circle-shaped cookie stencil about 4 to 5 inches in diameter, use that to cut out portions of dough. Otherwise, flip a large cup with a rim about the same diameter upside down and use this to cut out portions of dough.

Place 2 to 3 tablespoons of the apple filling into the center of half of the dough cut-outs (if you have 18 cut-outs, only place the apple filling into the center of 9 of them). Dampen two fingers and lightly tap around the rim of the cut-outs with the filling on them and then place a dough cut-out on top. This small amount of moisture will help seal the bottom portion and top portions of dough when the pies bake. Gently press the rim of the covered pies with a fork to finish the seal. Repeat this process with the remaining portions of dough.

Lightly brush each pie before baking with heavy cream and then garnish with a sprinkle of turbinado sugar. Bake for 18–20 minutes, or until the edges are a deep golden brown color. Remove from the oven and let the pies cool on the baking sheets for 1 hour.

Whisk the ingredients for the glaze in a small bowl and drizzle this over the top of each pie when they have cooled completely. Give the glaze a few minutes to set, and then serve and enjoy!

Store leftovers at room temperature, preferably on a plate covered loosely with plastic wrap, for up to one week (if they aren’t all eaten immediately, which is doubtful).