Apple Hand Pies

These apple hand pies take everything you love about apple pie, except they're neatly wrapped in puff pastry for cute, individual-sized portions. They have a lattice weave that's super easy to weave, topped with crunchy sugar, and baked to perfection. These are the perfect treat to enjoy this Autumn.

The Best Thing About a Pie...

Are those bites where you get a bit of crispy crust and sweet, soft filling. These are, in my opinion, far too few when you're eating a regular slice of pie. The benefit of these tiny hand pies is that every bite has crispy, flaky crust, and they're definitely a bit easier to make than an entire full-sized pie.

The filling is a simple mixture of butter, cream, fall spices, and diced apples, which are then stuffed into store-bought puff pastry. We added a lattice on top which, aside from being super cute, adds another layer of crunch and crispiness.

These are absolutely delicious and look amazing, so keep on reading! If you're looking for a way to use up a whole lot of apples, try out our Homemade Apple Butter (it would actually also make for a delicious filling for these!). Or, if you're just looking for another cozy baking recipe, try out our fan-favorite Homemade Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop Tarts.

Jump to:

• The Best Thing About a Pie...
• Key Ingredients Needed for Apple Hand Pies
• How to Bake These Apple Hand Pies
• Top Tips from the CK Test Kitchen!
• More Apple Recipes You'll Love
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Reviews

Key Ingredients Needed for Apple Hand Pies

• Puff pastry: We tested this recipe with a few different brands of puff pastry and found that Pepperidge Farm was the easiest to work with, and was also the exact right quantity to make 8 of these hand pies. Plus, it's available in most grocery stores in the US!
• Apples: We like honeycrisp for the filling, but other good options include Granny Smith, pink lady or braeburn.
• Turbinado sugar: This is just for adding some crunchy/texture to the top of the hand pie. If you don't have any, any coarse sugar will work or you can just omit.

How to Bake These Apple Hand Pies

1. To a small saucepan over medium heat, add in the butter and cook until melted. Whisk in the heavy cream, cornstarch, vanilla, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt until completely incorporated. 
2. Turn the heat down to medium low and add in the diced apples. Stir to coat the apples, then add in the water. Continue cooking on medium low for 10-12 minutes, until the apples are fork-tender.

3. Preheat your oven to 400˚F / 205˚C.
4. Set the apple filling aside to cool while you prepare the puff pastry. To a lightly-floured surface, lay down the puff pastry and roll into a 14x14 inch square. Cut the square in half then cut each resulting rectangle in half once more, so you are left with 4 identical 7x7 inch squares.
5. Identify the midpoint of a square. About a half inch down from the midpoint, using a bench scraper, knife, or pizza cutter, cut a North-South line down through the bottom of the square. The bottom right and bottom left of the square will now be independent flaps. On the bottom right of the square, make two equidistant parallel cuts, dividing the bottom right flap into 3 strips of dough.

6. Now directly to the left of the midpoint, cut an East-West line through the puff pastry, and cut two equidistant and parallel lines into the puff pastry. Your puff pastry square will now have the top right and bottom left uncut, while the top left will have 3 horizontal cuts and the bottom right will have 3 vertical cuts.
7. Add ⅛th of the apple pie filling (about ¼ cup) to the top right quadrant of the square, then brush the outer edges of the bottom left quadrant with egg wash. Pull the bottom left quadrant over onto the top right quadrant, then press down along the edges. You'll basically have a big apple ravioli with 3 attached strips on the left and the bottom.

8. Flip the top and bottom strips from the left of the puff pastry over the top of your apple-filled "ravioli", then flip the left-most strip from the vertical 3 strips on the bottom over the top of the two horizontal strips you just flipped over. Flip down the middle strip from the three horizontal strips, thus completing the first column of your lattice.

9. Now flip back the top and bottom horizontal strips and pass the middle vertical strip over the tops of the top and middle horizontal strip. Flip the top and bottom horizontal strips back down, and the second column of your lattice is complete.
10. Flip back the middle horizontal strip and flip up the rightmost vertical strip. Flip the middle horizontal strip back down, and now your lattice is complete.

11. To prevent the lattice from puffing up and coming undone during baking, pull on the ends of each piece of lattice, brush them with egg wash, and pull them under the pastry and stick them there.

12. Brush with a beaten egg, then top with coarse sugar and bake for 17-19 minutes, until the tops of the pies are golden brown.

Top Tips from the CK Test Kitchen!

• Patience is your friend! If you want these to look beautiful, they're actually pretty easy to assemble, but you do need to be a bit patient. A ruler goes a long way, too, in making sure they're all even in size.
• Make sure the puff pastry is chilled before baking. The puff will likely be at room temp by the time you're done shaping these, so make sure to pop them back in the fridge or freezer until the puff pastry is firm, otherwise they won't puff up.

More Apple Recipes You'll Love

We can't wait for you to bake these apple hand pies in your own home! If you do, be sure to let us know! Leave a comment with a star rating below. You can also snap a photo and tag @crowded_kitchen on Instagram. We can't wait to see what you're cooking!

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