Cherry Hand Pies with a Flaky Sugared Crust

Cherry hand pies are a whole cherry pie folded into something you can eat standing up: a round of pie crust, a spoonful of thick cherry filling, an egg-washed edge crimped with a fork, and a crackle of coarse sugar on top. Twenty minutes to assemble, twenty to bake, and no slicing, no soggy bottom and no fight over the last piece.

This version is built for speed. Refrigerated pie crust and a can of cherry pie filling get you there in under an hour, and the small changes that matter, chilling the rounds before filling, venting the tops and not overfilling, are what separate a tidy golden half-moon from one that leaks its filling across the sheet. Once you have the method, every other fruit filling follows.

Pictured: pies made from a ball of pie dough rolled out and cut into 5-inch rounds, which gives eight larger hand pies. The recipe card uses two refrigerated crusts and a 4-inch cutter for twelve smaller ones. The method is identical, and both sizes are covered under Variations.

Hand Pies or Turnovers?

A turnover is puff pastry, a hand pie is pie crust. Puff pastry rises into shattering layers and goes soft within hours, which is why bakery turnovers are a morning food. Pie crust bakes crisp and tender, holds its shape, and is still good the next day, which is why hand pies were the original lunch-pail dessert long before anyone had a bakery on the corner.

Cherry hand pies are also sealed all the way round, so the filling stays put. A turnover is folded and often left partly open at the corners. A hand pie is crimped shut with a fork, vented with a couple of slits, and brushed with egg so the seam browns and sets. Done right, you can hold one in your hand, which is where the name comes from.

Cherry is the classic filling for a reason. Tart cherries carry enough acid to cut through butter and sugar, and canned cherry pie filling is already cooked and thickened, so it does not leak the way a raw fruit filling does when it hits the oven.

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Ingredient Notes

• Pie crust. Two sheets of refrigerated pie crust, brought to room temperature for ten minutes so they unroll without cracking. A ball of homemade all-butter dough, as in the photos, works exactly the same way; roll it to an eighth of an inch.
• Cherry pie filling. One 21-ounce can. Look for one where cherries, not syrup, dominate the tin; the thicker the filling, the less it leaks. A cup and a half of homemade filling works too, as long as it is fully cooled.
• Egg. One large egg whisked with a tablespoon of water. It glues the seam shut and gives the tops their deep golden color.
• Coarse sugar. Turbinado or demerara for crunch and sparkle. Granulated sugar melts into the crust and disappears; the coarse crystals stay on top.
• Flour. A little for dusting the board, so the rounds lift cleanly.

Tart cherries are the pie cherry, and Penn State Extension notes that they are almost always cooked rather than eaten fresh, which is why canned filling is made from them. If you make your own filling from sweet cherries, add a squeeze of lemon to bring the acid back.

Store-Bought or Homemade Crust?

Refrigerated crust is the honest choice for fifty-minute cherry hand pies. It rolls evenly, seals reliably, and bakes to a crisp, slightly sandy crust that suits a hand pie, where the pastry-to-filling ratio is high. Let it come to room temperature so it does not crack when you unroll it, and reroll the scraps once to get the full dozen.

Homemade all-butter dough, which is what the photographed batch was made with, gives a flakier, more buttery pie with a crust that shatters a little when you bite it. Any single-crust pie dough recipe doubled will do, and a food-processor dough is the quickest. Chill it well, roll it to an eighth of an inch, and give the cut rounds ten minutes in the fridge before filling so the butter firms up again. The same dough makes a very good rustic cherry galette if you would rather make one big free-form pie.

How To Make Cherry Hand Pies

First, heat the oven to 400°F and line two baking sheets with parchment. Unroll the crusts on a lightly floured board and cut out rounds with a 4-inch cutter, or a 5-inch one for the larger pies in the photos. Stack the scraps, reroll once, and cut again. Slide the rounds onto a tray and chill them for ten minutes.

Next, whisk the egg with the water until no streaks of white remain. Take the rounds out, brush a half-inch border of egg wash around the edge of each one, and spoon a level tablespoon of cherry filling into the center. It will look like too little. It is not; overfilled pies burst at the seam, and a burst seam means the filling caramelizes on the parchment instead of staying inside the pastry.

Fill, Fold and Crimp

Then fold each round in half over the filling to make a half-moon, press the edges together with your fingertips to push out any air, and crimp the edge firmly with the tines of a fork.

After that, cut two small slits in the top of each pie with a sharp knife so steam can escape, brush the tops with the remaining egg wash, and sprinkle generously with coarse sugar. Arrange them on the sheets with an inch of space between.

Finally, bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until the pastry is deep golden and you can see the filling bubbling at the slits. Let the pies cool on the sheet for five minutes so the filling settles, then move them to a rack. They are best warm, but they are very good at room temperature too.

How To Tell When Cherry Hand Pies Are Done

Color first, because the timer is only a guide. Done cherry hand pies are golden brown across the whole top, not just at the edges, with a darker line along the crimp where the egg wash has caught. Pale pastry with a golden rim is underbaked and will be soft in the middle, however long it has been in.

Then look at the slits. The filling should be bubbling visibly through the vents, and a little may have oozed out onto the parchment. That is the sign the inside is hot through and the bottom crust has had time to crisp. If nothing is bubbling at 18 minutes, give them another two or three.

Lift one with a spatula and check the bottom. It should be firm, dry and lightly browned. A pale, soft base means the sheet was too crowded or the oven was not fully hot when they went in.

Make It Ahead

Cherry hand pies are a good candidate for making ahead, because the pastry does not mind waiting. Assemble the pies through the crimping and slitting, leave off the egg wash and sugar, and refrigerate them on the tray, loosely covered, for up to a day. Brush and sugar them just before baking and add a minute or two to the time.

For longer, freeze the assembled, unwashed pies on the tray until solid, then bag them. Bake straight from frozen at 400°F for 23 to 25 minutes, brushing with egg and sprinkling with sugar first. Baked from frozen, cherry hand pies come out nearly as good as fresh, which makes a batch in the freezer one of the better things to have on hand.

Storing Cherry Hand Pies

Cool them completely before they go into a container, or the trapped steam softens the crust. An hour on the rack is enough; the filling inside stays warm longer than the pastry suggests, so give a pie a squeeze before packing it. At room temperature in an airtight container they keep for two days; in the fridge, four to five. The pastry softens a little each day either way, and a few minutes in a 325°F oven or an air fryer at 320°F brings the crispness back. Skip the microwave, which turns the crust leathery within seconds.

Baked pies freeze well for up to three months. Wrap them individually, thaw at room temperature, and reheat in a low oven for ten minutes. Between the baked and the unbaked route, unbaked freezes better, because the pastry has not yet had a chance to soften.

Variations and Substitutions

Larger cherry hand pies (pictured). Use a 5-inch cutter, a saucer or a small bowl as a template, and fill each round with a heaping tablespoon and a half. You will get eight pies from two crusts. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes.

Homemade dough. A double batch of any all-butter pie dough, rolled to an eighth of an inch. Chill the rounds for ten minutes before filling.

Glazed. Skip the coarse sugar and, once the pies are cool, drizzle with a cup of powdered sugar whisked with two tablespoons of milk and a drop of almond extract, which is cherry’s natural partner.

Other fillings. Apple, blueberry, peach or strawberry pie filling all work can for can. Lemon curd and Nutella are the two most popular off-menu choices; use two teaspoons rather than a tablespoon, because both are runnier when hot. The baked empanadas on this site use the same fold-and-crimp for a savory version.

Fresh cherries. Simmer two cups of pitted cherries with a third of a cup of sugar, a tablespoon of cornstarch and a squeeze of lemon until thick, then cool completely before using.

Air fryer. Cook in a single layer at 350°F for 10 to 12 minutes. They brown fast, so check at 8.

What to Serve with Cherry Hand Pies

A warm hand pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream is the obvious answer, and the right one. Cherry hand pies are sweet but not rich, so the cream is welcome rather than too much. For a picnic or a lunchbox, they need nothing at all. For a dessert table, pair them with something cool and creamy like a lemon icebox pie so there is a contrast in temperature and texture.

They are also a genuinely good breakfast, split and warmed, with coffee, and a plate of them disappears from a bake sale table faster than a whole pie ever does, because nobody has to cut anything. If cherry is the family favorite, the cherry cheesecake bars use the same filling in a very different way.

Cherry Hand Pies FAQ

More Questions About Hand Pies

Cherry hand pies are the pie for people who do not want to make a pie, and once a batch is in the freezer they are a ten-minute dessert on any night. If a full-size pie is the goal after all, the blueberry rhubarb pie is the one to try next.