"I only like two kinds of pie: hot and cold." The best thing about hand pies is that you can eat it cold or warm it up, but the crust doesn't get soggy!
1stickunsalted butterfrozen, grated on the large side
1½cupall purpose flour
1tspsalt
¼cupsugar
½cupice water
Hand Pies
1 1/4cuppie filling of choice
2Tbspegg whites
2Tbspturbinado sugar
Instructions
Pie Crust
Whisk together the flour, salt, and sugar with a fork.
Shred in the frozen butter and lightly toss in your dry mix to coat.
Add in the water (not the ice) starting with 1/4 cup. Still using your fork, stir to distribute moisture. Once you can convince a somewhat dry clump to stick together, dump the bowl out onto the counter.
Using a bench scraper, fold the crumbly mixture over onto itself until it is smooth and hydrated. Work quickly so it stays ice cold. If your dough gets warm, put it in the fridge for 10 minutes before continuing to fold it to shape.
Once you've achieved a mostly smooth surface (but the sides where you've folded may have cracked and show flaky layers), wrap in plastic wrap or beeswax food cloth. Rest in the fridge for 1 hour.
Hand Pies
Preheat oven to 375°F.
Roll out the pie dough to ⅛ inch thick. Use a 4-biscuit cutter to cut out 20 circles. You may need to collect the scraps and reroll them. To do this, stack the scrapes and roll. Do NOT squish them like PlayDoh or you'll lose the layers. Place the circles on a parchment-covered baking sheet.
Spoon 1½ Tbsp of the pie filling into the center of 10 of your circles.
Brush the edges with egg whites, and then cover with the other 10 circles of pie crust.
Use your fingers to press the top crust down onto the bottom crust. Crimp the edges with the fork.
Brush more egg white all over the tops of the pies. Sprinkle on turbinado sugar.
Use a paring knife to poke a small vent hole in the top.