Cherry Hand Pies
The ultimate summer breakfast treat, homemade cherry hand pies are a gorgeous golden brown pastry with cherry pie filling and cherry glaze!

If you’re the kind of person that prefers a higher crust to filling ratio than you will certainly love hand pies over traditional pies. Not to mention they are much easier to eat.
& don’t even get my started on the gorgeous pink color that comes with using fresh black cherries.

How to make Cherry Hand Pies
There are three parts to these cherry hand pies. The first is the pastry which I make out of my best pie crust recipe. The second is the cherry filling, which is also used to make pink glaze on top.


How to make the pastry
This pie crust recipe is super simple to make and has never failed me! & I’m not a fancy pie kind of girl. If you’ve been here a while, you’ll know that cakes are more my thing. So I’m telling you this pie crust turns out for me every time.
I also used it in my apple butter hand pies which is a gorgeous brown sugar cinnamon apple filling stuffed inside a flakey pastry.


Ingredients:
- Flour: I just use all purpose flour. There is such a thing as pastry flour and I know some people like cake flour for pie crusts too but all-purpose works perfectly here.
- I also HIGHLY recommend using a digital scale, as flour is almost always over measured.
- Sugar: I add just a touch of granulated sugar to the pie dough. If you swap this for brown sugar, you may need to cut back on some of the water.
- Butter: I use all butter in my pie crusts…always. I refuse to use shortening and I’ve heard great things about lard but I’ve never tried this recipe with either of those, just butter.
- Water: you’ll want ice cold water. I measure my water first, pop it in the freeze while I get the rest of my ingredients ready and then bring it out when I need it (make sure it doesn’t actually freeze).


How to make the cherry filling
I just made a traditional cherry pie filling on the stove, the same one I use in my cherry cream pie recipe and my white forest cake.
It’s so easy and quick to make and super delicious but if you want to make it more like a jam, you totally can! You can either chop the cherries up (I left them mostly whole), or you can mash them after they’re cooked.
You can also make it even more smooth with an immersion blender. Just cook the cherries as directed and then puree them.



How to make the cherry glaze topping
Isn’t that color absolutely stunning?! And to think I almost went with plain white…lol. I just removed some of the juice from the cherry filling (after it was cooked and cooled) and mixed it with some powdered sugar.
Depending on how thick your cherry filling got, you may need a little more or less powdered sugar than I used.
I needed ¾ cup (90g) of powdered sugar per tablespoon of cherry juice but you may need ½ cup – 1 cup (60g – 120g) per tablespoon.
The glaze will be pretty thick, it won’t be runny. That’s because I wanted it to stay on the hand pie and not run off. It still settles nicely and may still drip a little but it will set more firm.

Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use store bought pie crust
Yes you can use store bought pie crust but I don’t know if it’s just me, I always feel like store bought pie crusts have a slightly bitter taste? But it will definitely work for this recipe.

Can I use store bought cherry jam?
Yup! You can use store bought cherry jam, cherry preserves or cherry pie filling for this as well. Just make sure whatever you use isn’t too runny that it will leak out of the hand pie during baking.

How to store cherry hand pies
These cherry hand pies can be stored airtight at room temperature for 2-3 days or refrigerated for 1-2 weeks.
They stay more fresh if they’re frozen though. Just place them in an airtight container or wrap them individually in plastic wrap. Place them or the whole container in a freezer bag, squeezing out all the excess air and freeze.
Bring them back to room temperature before serving.

Thanks so much for reading today’s post, if you have any questions just comment down below. Make sure to leave it in the comment section because I can’t answer in the rating section :).
If you make these cherry hand pies, I would love to see it so make sure to tag me @baranbakery on instagram.
As always, have a blessed day and happy baking!
Love, B
I can’t wait to use this recipe to make my dad some homemade pop tarts. I have st dalfour’s black cherry fruit spread. Can I use this for the cherry filling? And I can use some of the liquid bit I see in the jar for the frosting? I was not sure what your opinion would be on that. Thanks so much!
Hi Amy, yes I think that would work just fine!