How are you all doing? Working from home, not working at all, suddenly a teacher, not sure when you’ll be paid next? It really stinks. I know. I’m right there, too.
I’ve been occasionally baking while home on lockdown. I try to do this judiciously, using ingredients that I already have on hand and/or not using ingredients that I know are hard to find nowadays. No special trips to the store just for that one item that a recipe calls for.
April 2 is Peanut Butter & Jelly Day. So, let’s find little things to celebrate. This recipe for Peanut Butter & Jelly Hand Pies uses ingredients that you probably have at home, with the possible exception of cream cheese and presuming you already had sugar, flour, butter, and eggs at home.
The dough in this recipe is unexpectedly flaky and quite nice. I used a 3″-diameter round cookie cutter for my hand pies, but use whatever you have available, and adjust the amount of filling per pie accordingly.
Peanut Butter & Jelly Hand Pies
Ingredients
For dough
2 c all-purpose flour
2 T sugar
1 t salt
1 c unsalted butter, cold, cubed
1 egg, divided
2-3 T ice water
demerara sugar (or table sugar, or no sugar…)
For filling
¼ c peanut butter (I used crunchy)
1 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 T sugar
¼ c jam of your choice
Instructions
- Combine flour, sugar and salt either in a medium bowl or a food processor. Add butter. Pulse food processor, use a pastry cutter, or two knives to mix butter into flour mixture, creating pea-sized pieces. Add almost all of the egg and combine again (keep a tablespoon or so of the egg for later), and then add just enough ice water to bring the dough into a ball.
- Divide dough in half, form each into a disc, cover in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for one hour.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or silpat.
- Combine peanut butter, cream cheese, and sugar with an electric mixer until smooth.
- After it has chilled, roll out pie dough on a floured surface to ¼-inch thickness. Cut circles with a round cookie cutter. Take any scraps, combine, and re-roll to make more circles.
- Place a dollop of jam and a dollop of the peanut butter mixture onto one side of each dough circle. For a 4-inch circle, you’ll want about 1 teaspoon of each. Adjust this amount depending on the size of your circles.
- Fold the circle in half into a semi-circle, sealing the edges with a fork. Cut two small slits into the top of each to allow steam to escape.
- Place onto baking sheets. Brush with the remaining tablespoon or so of egg. If desired, sprinkle with sugar (demerara is great, table sugar will work as well, or skip altogether).
- Bake for 18 minutes or until golden brown. It’s ok if some jelly leaks out! Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Sweet Jumbles 