Pocket pies are fun to make and eat, and a great way to use up a bunch of apples beyond their prime! To be honest, I’ve had my fair share of apples recently, but these pockets were quite irresistible nevertheless. The dough was lovely, and I’m already thinking about all the sweet and savory fillings for future pocket goodies!
I adapted the recipe from Dog Hill Kitchen’s Cherry Pocket Pies. I generally dislike rolling out pie pastries and such, but this dough was really easy to work with, and also totally easy to make. My filling is not very sweet, so this recipe makes snack style pocket pies, but with more sugar these would be a nice portable dessert as well.
The Filling:
- about 10 dl chopped apples
- about 1 dl water (or more)
- 4 tablespoons muscovado sugar (or more)
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup
- 1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
- grated zest of 1 lemon
- pinch of salt
- 2 tablespoons potato (or corn) starch, mixed with a bit of water
It’s best to start making the filling an hour or so before baking, so it’ll have time to cool down.
I rinsed and cored the apples, and cut them in small cubes. Then I placed them in a sauce pan with the water, and simmered them on medium to medium high heat until they started to soften and mush up. I added the sweeteners and the spices (muscovado through salt), and cooked until I had a nice saucy consistency with a few apple pieces here and there. Then I mixed the potato starch with a little bit of water, and poured the slurry in the apple pot, stirring all the time to ensure it wouldn’t form lumps. This thickened my filling almost instantly. I removed the pot from heat and let the filling cool down before assembling the pies.
You might need more water or less potato starch, all depending on the fruit you use. Our apples were kind of floury.
The Dough:
- 5 and 1/2 dl whole spelt flour
- 2 dl soy milk
- 5 tablespoons margarine
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
I mixed the flour with the baking soda and salt, and then added the cold margarine in the bowl. Now, I used a fork to incorporate the margarine in the dry mixture. When it looked uniformly crumbly all over, I added the soy milk, and kneaded for a few minutes. The dough should come together nicely, so if it is sticky at this point, you might need to add a little bit more flour.
Now I set the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Then I divided the dough in 12 equal portions, shaped each into a ball, and rolled them out into circles. The pocket shells were about 15 cm in diameter.
To assemble, I placed about 2 heaping tablespoons of the filling in the center of each dough circle, folded the sides together, and sealed them with the spikes of a fork. Now, I covered two baking sheets with baking parchment, placed the pies on the sheets, brushed them with some soy milk, and scored them thrice with a knife to make air vents.
Then I baked my little pockets, for 25 minutes, one baking sheet at a time, until they were a little brown around the edges and on the bottom side.
15 Comments
oh my goodness these look fabulous! I need to make this asap! =)
I’m glad you liked the dough! It’s one of the best dairy-free pie doughs I’ve found. I’ll have to give it a try with whole spelt. I just bought some yesterday after not having it for a long time.
Maggie – the dough was such a dream to work with, thank you for the recipe!
I also shy away from things like this because of all the dough work. But your apple pockets look so delicious that I should try them really soon!
yummy. just like apple pie. these look nice and light, but probably don’t taste it.
u inspired me to make these for pudding tonight :D
xxpea
Those pies look so sweet! And I love the cup in the photo too!
Hey, I passed you an award, you can go check it out here : http://www.veggie-wedgie.com/?p=424
Rock on!
I love pocket pies! I’m usually afraid of making my own dough, but if you say it was easy…
hey anni and heikki.
you have very beautiful blog!
these applepockets we´re really good. we did our version from these shaped as bundle (it´s now in our foodblog).
thank you – kiitos- for a lovely recipe!
your welcome!Keep up the good work!By the way I love the picture you have on the banner,its perfect :)
Yum! These look so nice! Yum yum!
I love this recipe, the dough worked really well, only problem I had was I think I used a bit too much lemon zest and it tasted very lemony, next time i’ll use less. I’ve used the dough to make the same pockets with tomatoes, onions and peppers and they turned out really well too. Thanks for the great recipe.
These look delicious! I think I’ll try this.. I’ve never used spelt before.. I notice you use it quite a bit. Why is that?
Katie – these are really nice! Sorry for the delay in answering, I’ve had a summer flu these past few days.
I like spelt mostly for its flavor – it’s a little nutty, more flavorful than regular wheat flour. We also get it reasonably priced from our organic delivery, otherwise it’s pretty expensive in Finland. When I started to feel like experimenting with different kinds of flours, spelt was an easy next step from wheat!