Cherry Hand Pies

If you have had your eyes open in the produce section of the grocery store these days, you can't help but notice how beautiful and plentiful the cherries are during these dog days of summer. I recently subscribed to Bon Appetit after my subscription ended with Food and Wine. I wasn't really disappointed with F&W, but I wanted to change things up. I was flipping through my first copy during a pedicure and decided that these cherry hand pies would be perfect to bring to my family's picnic at Civic Center Park on the 4th of July. The Colorado Symphony was playing its patriotic tunes while the city and county building was lit up and fireworks were set off. What caught my eye about this recipe? I liked its easy, hand-held nature and I really liked that it used store-bought puff pastry. Sadly, I did not use this as an excuse to buy a cherry pitter. That gadget will have to wait.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 cups fresh cherries, stemmed and pitted, or about 12 ounces frozen pitted cherries, unthawed
• 2/3 cup dried cherries
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 14-ounce package all-butter puff pastry, thawed in refrigerator
• Flour (for dusting)
• 1 large egg white
• 1 1/2 teaspoons raw sugar

Preparation (my comments in italics):

•  Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Stir cornstarch and 1 1/2 tablespoons cold water in a small bowl to blend. Combine fresh cherries (cut in half and pitted - a messy job!) and next 4 ingredients in a large saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until cherry juices are released, about 5 minutes. Add cornstarch mixture; bring to a boil, stirring often. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally.
• Roll out pastry on a lightly floured surface to an 18x15" rectangle. Using a sharp knife or pizza cutter, cut dough into nine 6x5" rectangles. Whisk egg white and 1 tablespoon water in another small bowl for egg wash. 
• Working with 1 pastry rectangle at a time, place on a work surface and brush edges with egg wash (this is where I started to curse and throw forks). Scoop 3 tablespoons cherry mixture onto one side; fold dough over filling so that short ends meet, forming a 5x3" packet. Crimp edges with a fork to seal. Using a sharp knife, cut a few slits in top of pie to vent. Place on prepared baking sheet; repeat with remaining dough and filling. No matter what you do, cherry goo will leak out of some unforeseeable crack. 
• Brush tops with egg wash, then sprinkle with raw sugar. Chill for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 375°. Bake pastries until tops and bottoms are golden brown, 30-40 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes on baking sheet. Transfer to wire racks; let cool completely. DO AHEAD Can be made 1 day ahead. Let stand at room temperature.

What went wrong:
Admittedly, my Achilles heel in the kitchen is the creation and manipulation of yeast doughs and pastries. What should have been pull-apart sheets of refrigerated puff pastry actually turned out to be a warmer, softer blob of dough. I think this is a result of defrosting on my kitchen counter too long. Eventually I rolled out 9 relatively symmetrical rectangles.

Then the egg wash screwed me. I brushed the egg wash on the edges before attempting to "seal" them and I thought to myself, "I have seen this done a thousand times before on Food Network." But instead of making a better seal, it made the edges of the pastry slippery and harder to contain the cherry filling. I gave up after trying it on 2. I did have success achieving the lovely golden brown color by brushing egg wash over the top of the pastries when all was said and done. Even the ones that I thought were sealed better still leaked cherry goo during baking. Perhaps this is unavoidable. Perhaps my biggest disclaimer would be: this recipe not suitable for those with OCD.

I may have under-baked them, but my family seemed to have no complaints.

What went right:
The filling was absolutely delicious. I was very proud of myself and I liked the combination in texture between the fresh cherries and the re-constituted dried cherries. I suppose canned cherry filling would do in a pinch, but instead of an unnatural red color, I had a beautiful deep red/purple. Pitting that many cherries is no picnic, but I improvised a tiny scoop with the tip of my vegetable peeler. I feared that cherry juice would be hard to get off of my counter tops, but it turned out to be less difficult than removing red velvet cake batter stains.

Overall, I would say that I need to improve my pastry and bread making skills in general. With that taken care of, I could see a lot of great uses for this recipe with other plentiful summer fruits.

4/5 whisks from me.