Pumpkin Hand Pies
Ingredients:
Crust
1¼ cups whole wheat pastry flour
Pinch of salt
3 Tbs very cold butter
¼ cup cold water
Bench flour, for rolling out the crust
Filling
½ cup unsweetened pumpkin puree
4 tsp Blue Agave Nectar
¼ tsp pumpkin pie extract
Instructions:
Crust
Combine the flour and salt in a medium bowl. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender. Add the ice water a tablespoon at a time until the dough forms a ball. Do not add anymore water than you need to form the dough. Pat the dough into a disc, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 30minutes.
Preheat the oven to 400F.Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Remove the dough disc from therefrigerator and roll it out to a ¼-inch thickness on a lightlyfloured surface. Use a pumpkin shaped cookie cutter to cut out pumpkin shapes. Use a paring knife to cut-out pumpkin faces in half of the pumpkin shapes. Place the pumpkin shaped dough on theparchment lined cookie sheet and put it in the refrigerator while you prepare the filling.
Filling
In a small bowl, combine the pumpkin puree, Agave Nectar and pumpkin pie extract.
Remove the baking sheet from therefrigerator. Place a heaping teaspoon of filling in the center of each blank pumpkin shape and use a spoon to spread the filling almost to the edges. Lightly dip your finger into water and rub the edge ofthe pumpkin shape with the water. Place a pumpkin shape with cut-outs on top of the filling and lightly press the edges together to seal. Repeat with the remaining shapes.
Bake the hand pies for 16 to 20minutes, until golden brown. Allow the hand pies to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, then transfer them to cooling racks to cool completely.
