It’s finally warm here in Austin but even so I still find myself wanting to heat up the oven to make some yummy springtime baked goods. My boyfriend and I disagree about what type of fruits are appropriate for baking so we had to search high and low to find fruit we could agree on for spring pies. Finally we decided on blueberry and peach, both delicious warm weather fruits that bake well in pies. We decided to spice things up a little by adding some unconventional spices to the fruit mixture and the resulting vegan hand pies were amazing!

This recipe is inspired by Isa’s Blueberry Ginger Hand Pies recipe in Vegan Pie in the Sky. I heavily refer to this recipe for the dough because I’m not a dough aficionado but the fruits and spices are only loosely based on it.

Spiced Blueberry and Peach Handpies

Makes 8 hand pies. Directions are for frozen fruit but you can use fresh and just change the oven temperature & baking time slightly.

Ingredients:

For the dough:

2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour (I used unbleached)

3 tbsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 c. cold nonhydrogenated margarine (Earth Balance is great for this)

1/2 c. cold plain vegan yogurt (I used So Delicious cultured coconut milk)

1/4 c. cold unsweetened plant-based milk

For the filling:

1 lb. frozen blueberries and peaches

1/3 c. sugar

2 tsp. lemon juice

3 tbsp. corn starch

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp. ground coriander

1/4 tsp. ground ginger

Method:

Make the dough first. Tip: Make sure your margarine, non-dairy milk and non-dairy yogurt are refrigerated right up until you use them. You can also make the dough several hours or a day in advance and keep it refrigerated until you use it.

For the dough:

1. Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. 2. Add the cold margarine in small chunks (about tablespoon-sized) and cut it into the flour with a pastry cutter or fork. 3. Mix half the yogurt in, add the other half, and continue to mix until the dough is clumpy. 4. Stir in the milk and mix with your hands until the dough stiffens up. 5. Divide the dough into 4 pieces, roll them into balls, roll them into logs, wrap each one in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes or until ready to use.

For the pies:

1. Combine all filling ingredients in a bowl. 2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and line two large (rimmed to contain potential fruit overflow) baking sheets with parchment paper. 3. On a lightly floured surface roll out one of your dough logs into a rectangle (about 14″ x 7″, but it really just needs to be large enough to make 4 small pies out of). It’s okay if it’s not perfectly shaped but try to make it as even as possible. 4. Cut the rectangle into quarters. 5. Moisten the edges of one of the resulting squares and place a small dollop (about 1/4 cup) of filling on one half of it. 6. Fold over the square to cover your filling and press around the edges to seal the pie. You can use a fork or knife to crimp the edges to seal the deal. Transfer the pie to one of the baking sheets. 7. Repeat with remaining squares and the second log of dough until you have 4 pies on each baking sheet. Make a slit on the top of each pie to allow steam to escape. 8. Put both cookie sheets in the preheated oven and switch racks after 15 minutes and cook another 15 minutes. 9. Lower heat to 350 degrees F and bake an additional 10-15 minutes until they’re golden brown. 10. Take the pies out of the oven and transfer them to a cooling rack (you can just pick up the parchment paper and transfer them). Let cool before serving.

Now I just want to make all kinds of fruit pies to see what concoctions I can come up with next. Strawberry rhubarb? Peach basil? Apple? I’m hungry already!

Also see: 4 Tips on Juicing for Health – plus recipes!

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Related: Vegan Blueberry Cake with Vanilla Icing