Recipe: Plum-Licorice Hand Pies

(From Good Girl Dinette‘s Diep Tran)

Makes 7 hand pies

Ingredients

3 cups unbleached All-Purpose flour

2 tsp kosher salt

2 tsp granulated sugar

2 ½ sticks very cold unsalted butter

½ – ¾ cup very cold water

1 tsp vinegar 

3 plums, pitted, brunoised

1/3 cups sugar

1 tsp ground licorice

Making the Filling

1. Toss brunoised plums with the sugar, then put into a strainer placed inside a small sauce pot.  Let plums macerate at room temperature for an hour.  At the end of the hour, transfer macerated plums to mixing bowl.  Place the pot with the liquid from the macerated plums on the stovetop and reduce by a third.  Let reduced plum syrup cool down to 100 degrees, then add to the reserved macerated plums.  Add licorice powder and mix well.  Taste and adjust licorice flavor to your liking.
2. Set filling aside until ready to assemble hand pies.

Making the Dough

1. Mix flour, salt, and sugar in a large mixing bowl.
2. Cut butter into 1 Tbsp pats, toss into flour mixture.  Using a pastry cutter, cut the butter into the flour, breaking down the butter into roughly pea-sized pieces.  It’s okay if there are larger chunks of butter.  Put flour-butter mixture into the freezer for about 30 minutes to firm up the butter.
3. Mix together iced water and vinegar.
4. Once the flour-butter mixture has been properly chilled, take out of the freezer.  Using your fingers, make depressions all over the the surface of the flour.  Sprinkle some water into the depressions.  Still using your hands, gently incorporate the water into the flour.  Repeat the process and continue adding water until the dough, when pressed, holds its shape.  Depending on the humidity and the flour, you might not need to use all the water.
5. Gently press the dough down to create a flat mass of dough.  Using a bench scraper, cut the dough into four sections.  stack the four sections onto of each other and press down, creating layers of butter trapped inside dough. Flatten dough again and wrap in plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator for about 2 hours to relax the gluten.
6. Roll out the dough to a thickness of 1/8 inch.  Use a 4-inch round cutter, cut out 14 disks.  Refrigerate disks for 15 minutes to firm up dough before assembling hand pies.

Assembling and Baking the Pies

1. Lay 7 pie disks on a silicone-line baking sheet.  Place 2 Tbspn of filling on the pie disks.  Top with the remaining 7 pie disks.  Seal using the tines of a fork.  Sprinkle the tops of the pies with a bit of sugar for a little gloss.  Put the pies in the freezer for 10 minutes to firm up.
2. To bake the pies, take out of the freezer and bake at 422 degrees for 20 – 30 minutes, until tops are golden.