Homemade Hand Pies with Blackberry Filling

These Blackberry Hand Pies are made from delicious glazed pie crust or puff pastry surrounding a thick rich blackberry filling. Perfect for a lunchbox snack, an afternoon treat or an addition to the dessert table for a Holiday or party.

This hand pie recipe can be made with any fruit filling that you choose; strawberry, raspberry, lemon, even Nutella! We have wild blackberries on our property and they are our favorite berry during late Summer so we filled ours with a fresh blackberry filling. We chose our favorite sourdough crust to make the pastry, and we have a couple of our favorite crusts linked for you along with the blackberry filling recipe.

If you’re short on time you can always purchase a pre-made pie crust, but if you have the time we definitely recommend making your own. There is nothing better than a fresh, homemade pastry crust. These little pies also freeze really well, so you can make a lot at a time and save them for later.

What is the difference between a hand pie and a turnover?

When it comes to the differences between tasty turnovers and hand pies, the difference are subtle and don’t matter much in the final product. Turnovers and hand pies are both made with pie pastry or puff pastry; turnovers are sometimes made with a dough and shaped into a half circle shape much like a calzone. Hand pies traditionally are full circles all the way around.

As you can see from our little hand pies, they could be considered turnovers because of their shape…but that’s about it. The differences between these two pastries is so slight, you will often times see them used interchangeably.

What can you fill hand pies with?

Hand pies and turnovers can be sweet or savory depending on your mood. You could make a chicken pot pie filling, a pizza filling, or even a veggie filling. We enjoy a sweet pastry with a fruit filling using either fresh or frozen fruit. Some ideas for different sweet fillings would be any berry or fruit you choose including caramel apple, cherry, peach, pumpkin, even peanut butter and chocolate. The possibilities are endless with these tasty single serve pastries.

All of the filling recipes below will be great for fruit hand pies. Just add some extra cornstarch to make sure they thicken up well.

Click the links on the pictures to check out the pictured pie filling recipes.

How do I keep my hand pies from getting soggy?

If you are having trouble with soggy, or weak hand pies there are a few tricks that we suggest you try. Once your hand pies are assembled place them in your fridge and allow them to chill for at least 20 minutes. The dough will be warm from your hands and this will help bring structure back to the pies.

Baking temperature is also very important. An under baked hand pie or turnover will not be able to support the hot filling as well as a fully baked one, so be sure your oven is cooking at a hot enough temperature to fully bake the pies. For most regular ovens you will need your oven set between 400-425 degrees F.

Finally, be sure there isn’t excess liquid in your filling. Fillings should be soft and moist, but not wet and drippy. If you are adding excess liquid to your pies you will undoubtedly encounter seepage which will prevent your pastry dough from cooking properly.

Different crusts for your hand pies

Our favorite perfect pie crust for this recipe is a sourdough crust. It will give you a deep rich flavor that’s pretty hard to beat and compliments fruit fillings really well.

Sourdough pie crust also holds up well, makes a flaky pie crust and also has a bit of puff from the sourdough.

Use our sourdough pie crust or the coconut oil pie crust for a firmer crust.

Puff pastry is more tender and flaky. But it’s much less the style of the old Hostess pies you get from the store. We use it for our apple turnovers and other tender puff pastry recipes.

If you’re looking to make puff pastry hand pies use our homemade puff pastry below.

How should I store my hand pies?

Freshly baked hand pies can be kept safely at room temperature for two days, as long as your home isn’t unusually warm. They can be stored in an airtight container in your fridge for up to four days without the flavor or texture being affected.

If freezing, allow your hand pies to fully cool. Wrap them in a dry paper towel and place them in an airtight bag. When they are all properly stored in airtight wrappings, they can be stored together in a large freezer safe container or freezer bag for up to three months.

When you are ready to thaw and warm your hand pies, remove them from the freezer and move them to your fridge to slowly thaw, or place them on your counter to thaw at room temperature for a bit. Unwrap them and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Warm them on a low temperature for 10 minutes or until warmed through.

Blackberry Hand Pies:

This recipe makes about 16 single serving pies. If you don’t need that many it’s easy to cut the recipe for the filling and pie crusts in half to make 8 small pies. If you chose to purchase a pre-made pie dough, it may not yield a full 16 recipe as our homemade crusts tend to go further.

Visual Guide and Process Photos

Please Watch our video demonstration for the complete recipe. We have linked several homemade pie crust options for you in the gallery above.

Here is a visual walkthrough of the basic step of the recipe with two exceptions. We did not include pictures of the process for making the pie crust or the blackberry filling.

This post is focused on the process of making and baking the hand pies. Pretty much any pie filling or reliable pie crust will work well for hand pies. We offer several of ours linked above.

This is a guide to the assembling and baking the pies.

Assembling your hand pies

How to glaze your finished hand pies

We use a simple powdered sugar glaze. Once hardened it holds up well when using these pies as finger food.

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