Happy national PIE DAY! Yes, today January 23rd is National Pie Day. Let’s spread it all around. ♥ This past week, I’ve been working with chocolate/cocoa pie dough. It’s not heavy on the chocolate because I found that to be nearly impossible. However, there’s a slight cocoa taste that will surely complement a chocolate ganache filling. Since Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and, well, because the world needs a little more love (and always more chocolate!)… I made HEART hand pies. Today let’s look at step-by-step photos and chat about: The chocolate pie dough is an all-butter pie crust. I prefer to make regular pie crust with a mix of shortening and butter, but I found the best results for chocolate pie dough with all butter. The dry ingredients are like regular pie dough, but we’ll sub out some flour for unsweetened cocoa powder. Since there are no leavening agents, you can use either dutch-process or natural cocoa powder. I use dutch-process. Add a little sugar since cocoa can be bitter. And Instead of ice cold water, use ice cold milk. Cocoa powder has the tendency to dry things out, so I suggest a richer liquid, like milk or cream, in the pie dough. This is the same dough we use for chocolate pop tarts. As always, keep your chocolate pie dough super cold at all times. These guarantee chocolate pie dough success: (1) cold ingredients and (2) chilling the pie dough before shaping it. After the pie dough has chilled, roll it out and cut into shapes. Quick tip: place the heart shapes in the refrigerator so they stay cold as you prepare the hand pie filling. The filling is a simple chocolate ganache made from pure chocolate and heavy cream. Pure chocolate like those 4 ounce bars you get next to the chocolate chips in the baking aisle (Baker’s brand, Ghirardelli baking bars, etc). But here’s a little secret to amp up the flavor. Add PEANUT BUTTER. This, of course, is optional and you can make a plain chocolate ganache if preferred. But if you’re not concerned about the chocolate hand pies being nut-free, why not? I’ll include the optional addition of peanut butter in the recipe. My pictured hand pies were filled with peanut butter chocolate ganache!! ↓ When assembling the chocolate hand pies, make sure you brush the edges of the bottom heart with egg wash. This helps the top heart stick. Fill with a spoonful of ganache, then crimp the pie crust edges with a fork. Add a little egg wash and coarse sugar on top of the hand pies before the oven. The chocolate hand pies will take about 15-18 minutes in a hot oven. Don’t overbake! I overbaked my first batch and they tasted very dry. Tasty, yes… but I needed a gallon of water after 1 bite. You only want to bake them until the edges are pretty set. The filling should be warm and a little gooey. Deeee-lish. Top with more chocolate (and you can melt it down with peanut butter!!) and you’ve got yourself a triple chocolate heart-shaped treat. These sorta remind me of chocolate pop tarts. And, actually, this is exactly how we make homemade brown sugar cinnamon pop tarts! Naturally, these chocolate heart hand pies are a lovely choice for Valentine’s Day. For even more inspiration, here are 36+ Valentine’s Day dessert recipes.
