This month, we’ve been asking food bloggers what they make for dinner when they’re home alone. Today, Sarah from A House In the Hills shares these mini apple pies, which she dips in salted caramel. (Holy!) Here goes…
Apple Hand Pies (With Salted Caramel)
By Sarah Yates of A House In the Hills
When my husband goes out of town, I often find myself in the kitchen baking away my afternoons. There’s something so self-indulgent (in the best possible way) about spending hours making sweet treats just for the joy of it. And these apple hand pies? They were one such solo adventure. Perfectly sized for dipping, I find they’re best enjoyed with a salted caramel sauce—the more salt the better, in my opinion!
This recipe is dairy-free, but feel free to substitute the coconut spread with butter, and the coconut milk with heavy cream if that’s what you’d prefer. I haven’t found a gluten-free pie crust for this recipe that works the way I’d like it to, but if you have suggestions, I’d love to hear!
Recipe: Apple Hand Pies With Salted Caramel Dipping Sauce
Makes 12 hand pies with 1 3/4 cup of dipping sauce
You’ll need:
For the pie crust:
2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. sugar
3/4 cup of coconut spread (sub butter, or hardened coconut oil)
1/3 cup + 3 tbsp. ice water
For the filling:
1 1/2 cups of peeled, cored and chopped pink lady or Fuji apples
1 tsp. flour
1 tbsp. fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 tbsp. sugar
For the caramel:
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup water
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp. Maldon sea salt (more to garnish)
1 1/2 cups of coconut milk cream (2 cans of coconut milk refrigerated overnight)
What to do:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
In a medium mixing bowl combine apples, flour, lemon juice, cinnamon and sugar. Mix and set aside.
In a food processor fitted with an “S” blade, combine flour, salt and sugar to start creating your pie crust. Add coconut spread to food processor and pulse until the flour is mixed, when you squeeze the mixture it should stick together. Add 1-2 tablespoons more coconut spread if needed. Add ice water and pulse until dough is sticky enough to form into a ball.
Remove dough and place on a lightly floured surface and use a rolling pin to flatten to 1/4″ thickness. Be careful to not over-handle the dough, roll only as much as needed, in one direction, to flatten it. Use a 3.5″ biscuit cutter to create 12 circles. Roll each circle a couple of times to further flatten.
Scoop a spoonful of apple mixture onto each dough circle, fold over and press edges with a fork to seal. Cut three small slices in the top of each hand pie. Place pies on baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes, or until crust is golden on the edges. Let cool before serving.
For the sauce:
Prepare coconut milk cream by scooping out the solid cream from the cans and separating from the liquid underneath. Measure out 1 1/2 cups of the solid cream and set aside.
In a large, heavy bottomed sauce pan, combine sugar and 3/4 cup water. Whisk over medium-low heat until sugar is dissolved. Simmer over medium heat until mixture begins to darken to a medium amber color. If available, use a candy thermometer to monitor the temperature until it reaches 350 degrees. Be careful not to burn the sugar, if judging doneness with your eyes err on the side of too light. Add vanilla extract, salt and coconut cream. Be careful, mixture will bubble when you add to it, so stand back!
Use a wooden spoon to combine ingredients and stir the caramel sauce while cooking for an additional 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat and carefully pour into serving bowls (or a storage container to save for later) Sprinkle with additional Maldon salt when serving (optional). Store in refrigerator for up to 5 days. Re-heat in a pan over low heat when serving after refrigerated.
Thank you, Sarah!
P.S. More best recipes, including apple crisp and olive oil cake.
(Photos and recipe by Sarah Yates of A House In the Hills. Thanks to Shoko for helping with this series.)
Hit dessert of Thanksgiving this year. We will make these again and again.
I made this recipe in Italy and wrote about it for my study abroad blog! The recipe went well, but finding basic ingredients was a bit tricky in an Italian grocery store!
mmmm this looks SO good! xo jillian – cornflake dreams
Oh man, these look so good! I know what I’m doing this weekend :)
http://www.ahealthymrs.com
This looks delicious, but is this something you would actually make for solo dinners? I mean I’ve had cupcakes and ice cream for dinner, but not on purpose.
Maybe it’s not for everyone, but I have a major sweet tooth and every once in awhile a night home alone calls for an afternoon of baking followed by dessert for dinner! :)
Thank you so much for posting delicious, vegan recipes once in a while. As a vegan who loves to cook, it really brightens my day! Keep it them coming!
EEEEK! I’m so excited this is dairy-free. I have a horrible allergy (not intolerance) to dairy and substitutions to make something dairy-free can sometimes completely screw it up. I’m so excited!!! Guess who is making some apple hand pies this weekend!!!?
Oh MY! These look crazy good. Love the caramel sauce! I’ll just take a bowl of that, please.
http://sometimesgracefully.com
Ok seriously this looks super yummy! Your tempting me!! I gotta try making this one day! RoRo’s World
This looks delicious! Except since becoming pregnant, I don’t love sweets, so I might skip the caramel for now, but the crust and apple filling barely have any sugar – awesome!!
xo kristen genevieve
sunnywithachanceoflemons.blogspot.com
sunny bloglovin
Kristen, Congrats on your pregnancy! The pies themselves are purposefully less sweet, the caramel sauce is what puts them over the edge! :)
OMG I can’t even deal with that. Looks incredible, I wish I had a plate of them in front of me right now!
Like little pierogis with apple filling, yum!
This looks easy to make, and the photography is beautiful, too!
Mmm… It’s Looks amazing!!! I will have to do it!!
http://pipocathings.blogspot.com.es/
These look amazing!
Looks so yummy.
Have a wonderful day.
Sofia
stylishlyinlove.blogspot.com
I really, really don’t get this gluten-free craze! If you are sensitive to gluten, by all means, you should stay away from it. But…I guess this is the latest “poison” food we should all avoid? Not that much left on the “good for you” list, is there?
Bisbee, I love making things gluten free because I know there are so many people who can’t have it. Unfortunately I’m not super good at flour substitutions. But I don’t think it’s a poison food. Although I hear you about the constant barrage of information about the different foods we eat and how they can be harmful! It can be totally overwhelming. I just try to stick with what makes sense for our family and tune out the rest!
They look amazing! x
Heather | Of Beauty & Nothingness
i am droolingggg
Um yes please!
YUM! You just gave me an idea for using up leftover chili, too – tuck it into hand pies!
These look amazing! Also, I’ve never heard of a “hand pie” before. In the south, we don’t bake them – we fry them – and hence, they’re called Fried pies.
This is probably a better option. :P
Look delicious..now if only someone would make them for me :)
Holy cow these look amazing! I make apple hand pies with extra sharp Cabot cheddar in the crust, and the sweet & savory works out great. But… you had to bring in that caramel dipping sauce, so now I have to try that! Thanks for another amazing recipe!
P.s.- hand pies are perfect for little hands!
That looks so good!!! I’ll try this tonight!
I really deeply love your blog and even wrote a little article about it- I hope that’s okay with you:
http://lasagnolove.blogspot.de/2013/10/our-favorite-blogs-part-3.html
Love from Germany,
Bambi
I’m with you! I’m going to try this tonight as well. I love the recipes that you feature Joanna!
Check out the BAD BLOG…
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