Dough Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour // 1 tsp Sea or Kosher Salt // 1 tsp Cane Sugar // 1/4 to 1/3 cup Lard or Beef Tallow // 1 tsp Vinegar or Apple Cider Vinegar // Teaspoon at a time cold water.

These can be fried or baked. Dough for a handpie won't hold up to cooking and handling if the dough has large lumps of fat, as would be used to make a flakey, delicate sliced pie. Handpie dough is made more like a dry biscuit dough.

Vinegar inhibits gluten activating in the dough, as is necessary in kneaded bread dough. You don't want that in fried or baked handpie dough.

Shortening (to me) makes a greasier pie and has an undesirable aftertaste in fried or baked handpies. Butter tastes great in pie dough, but can make the crust too delicate for a handpie. Handpie crust must be much more flexible, strong structurally and forgiving when cooking and handling the handpie. Therefore I use Lard, it makes the pie crust taste amazing, it is not a greasy handpie, and doesn't make the pie crust too delicate to handle.

Preparation of Dough: Mix dry ingredients together in a medium sized bowl. Add in the lard or tallow (or butter if using that). Mash and work the fat into the dry mixture until it looks somewhat like coarse cornmeal. I use a fork as it does the job much quicker and better. No this is not the same sort of dough as needed for a sliced pie, so the particles of fat need to be small and well distributed throughout the dry mixture.

Now add 2 to 3 teaspoons of cold water. With the fork turn the mixture over and press in slightly a couple of times. Add a teaspoon or two more water. Turn the dough ball and mix gently by folding or pressing it in each turn. I use anywhere from 4 to 6 tablespoons of cold water. Go by how it looks and handles.

The dough shouldn't be wet, it should be like a dry biscuit dough and a bit scrappy. If its sticky and wet, add a teaspoon of flour and fold it in a couple of times. If it's dry and falling to pieces, it needs a little more water. It should be a firm dough that will hold it's shape when pressed into a ball.

Place dough in a sealed container and chill in the fridge for a few hours or overnight. It's easier to roll and handle this dough a few hours after its made, or the next day, as the flour has had time to absorb the liquids. In this way its different than biscuit dough.

I don't use store bought pie dough to make handpies. That was an utter disaster the last time I tried to shortcut things using Pillsbury's pie crust.

Filling Ingredients: About a cup to 8 ounces dried tart cherries // about 1 1/2 cups tart cherry juice // pinch salt // either 2 tablespoons cornstarch or tapioca // 1/3 cup up to 1 cup Cane Sugar // 1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract.

Use whatever juice you like, tart cherry juice simply intensifies the cherry flavor! Put dried cherries in a small saucepot with the salt and juice. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer about 15 minutes, this step rehydrates and softens the dried cherries. Add vanilla or other flavorings, mix, cover and take from heat. Let it sit until cool, then chill in the fridge.

Once the filling has chilled, drain out all the juice, gently press the fruit with a spoon or your fingers. They don't need to be squeezed totally dry. Set the cherries aside.

Mix the cornstarch with the juice, stir very well or whisk until there's no clumps of cornstarch. Stir and work it until totally smooth. Then heat this liquid on medium heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat once the mixture has thickened (about ten to 15 minutes simmering cooks the cornstarch fully). Add the cherries back into the thickened juice, cover and chill until very cold.

Lightly flour the work surface, your rolling pin and hands, then place dough ball on floured surface. Pat it out into round disc, lightly sprinkle on some flour, then begin rolling the dough out. No thinner than 1/8th an inch thick to no thicker than 1/4 inch thick.

I use a container lid to cut out rounds about 6 inches in diameter. Large handpies (over 6" across) are easily busted open while frying or handling, so mine are usually 4 to no more than 6 inches across. Set each round aside once cut.

Warm oven to 325°f if baking. Or heat corn oil or lard to 360 to 375°f if frying them. Prep a paper towel lined pan to drain fried pies on. Fry no more than two in each batch. Bake as many as you have on a parchment paper lined pan if baking.

Now slightly beat one egg with a teaspoon of water, set aside.

Brush a 1 inch strip of eggwash around the outside edges of one pie round. Spoon one to two tablespoons of cold pie filling in the center of the pie round. Gently flip the dough over the filling making the eggwashed edges come together. Lightly press the edges together with your fingers, then crimp with a fork to seal the edges together. You should now have a nice little half circle filled with cherry pie filling.

As you make each pie, lay them aside on a pan until they're all made up into filled pies. If frying, only fry two at a time, (to only three at a time in a large skillet). This prevents the oil from cooling off too much. If the oil is too cool, the pies absorb more oil and take the risk of breaking when turning them over during frying.

I turn mine only once when frying to prevent handling them too much. It helps to use a slotted spoon in one hand and another slotted spoon or spatula in the other hand to turn them without splashing hot grease everywhere. Fry until the crust has turned golden brown. Drain fried pies on the paper towel lined pan.

If baking instead of frying, place the pies on the parchment paper lined baking pan and spray each pie with butter cooking spray. Then bake until golden brown. You'll know when they're ready because they'll suddenly explode with a delicious aroma when they're ready.

They can be left plain or dusted with a little powdered sugar. To make a glaze, make a mixture of 1/2 cup powdered sugar, a pinch of salt and about 1 teaspoon vanilla or cherry flavoring. Stir the mixture until there's no lumps. Drizzle each pie with glaze. Serve warm or chilled. These freeze well, just store them in a zip storage bag.

Of course you could use canned cherry pie filling instead of making the filling from scratch. I drain off most of the liquid from the canned pie filling, or thicken the liquid with cornstarch by cooking it in a small sauce pot until it is thick. My reason is, no one likes to bite into a handpie and squish filling all over themselves. A thick filling won't squirt out when bitten into so easily.

Also, when making the filling yourself, they can be customized your own way, made less or more sweet to preference. Any flavor of fillings is possible. Go crazy! :D