5 Star Makeover: Individual fruit pies

Today's 5 Star Makeover Summer'10 Special guest post is by Lauren at Healthy Delicious. Lauren is from Albany, New York. Her blog features excellent gourmet recipes with great combination of flavors with a focus on using fresh ingredients and limiting processed foods. Please, enjoy Lauren's makeover of individual fruit pies.



I always brought my lunch to school when I was a kid. Even back then I knew enough about food to know that school lunches were gross. However my palate wasn't quite sophisticated at that time to shun overly sweet overly processed snacks. My favorite was those little fruit pies that came in the waxed paper wrapper. You know the ones I'm talking about? They had a thick layer of sugary glaze on top and tons of sweet pie filling inside. I hadn't thought about them in years but I recently bought one impulsively as a treat. Not so much of a treat now! It was so sugary and processed that I couldn't even finish it — one bite was more than enough. The time for my formerly beloved pies to get a makeover was long overdue.

In preparation for a family picnic this weekend I made two varieties of the individually sized pies — fried cherry and baked apple & fennel pollen. The fennel pollen gave the apples pies a really unique flavor that everyone loved, and the cherry filling was fresh and tart — not like the syrupy fillings that you typically find under a pie crust. I was originally planning to make a vanilla glaze for the tops of the pies, but the fruit gave them enough sweetness to make a glaze unnecessary.

Both versions were huge hits, but the fried version now has a special place in my heart. Frying the dough makes it impossibly tender and flaky. In fact, they were so flaky that despite the convenient hand held size you might want to use a plate and fork — you don't have to, but they might be a little messy if you don't!

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbs. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces
6 oz. cream cheese, cut into pieces
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 bourbon vanilla bean
oil for frying (optional, for fried pies)
1 egg yolk (optional, for baked pies)
For the Cherry pies: 2 cups cherries, pitted and halved; 2 Tbs brown sugar
For the Apple & Fennel Pollen pies: 2 apples, peeled and dices, 2 Tbs sugar, 1 Tbs fennel pollen

Put the flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Add the butter and cream cheese and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the cream and pulse until the dough starts to come together, about 20 pulses more. Bring the dough together in a flat disk, wrap in wax paper, and chill for a half hour.

Prepare your filling: for the cherry pies, mix together the halved cherries and the brown sugar. For the apple pies, mix together the apples, sugar, and fennel pollen.

Roll the dough into a large rectangle, about 1/4-inch thick. Cut into 12 squares. Place 1 Tbs of filing into the center of each square, then fold the dough around it. Seal the edges with the tines of a fork. Chill for 15 minutes.

For baked pies: Mix together egg yolk and 2 Tbs water. Brush over the tops of each pie. Bake at 400 for 30 minutes.
For fried pies: Heat 1/2-inch of oil to 360-degrees. Fry the pies one at a time, for 1 minute on each side or until golden brown. Drain on paper towels.

Yields 12.



(The bourbon vanilla beans and fennel pollen used in these pies was provided to me by Marx Foods.)

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This guest post is part of the 5 Star Makeover Summer'10 Special:

Ten special bloggers have been invited to recreate different classic dishes of their choice and share them on the 5 Star Foodie Culinary Adventures blog. These guest posts will be featured every Monday from June 28 to August 30. This event is sponsored by MarxFoods, an online store that offers fantastic high quality gourmet products. In September, a final roundup of these makeovers will be posted and readers will be able to vote for their favorite recipe to receive a fabulous prize.