Tiny x & o hand pies.

I'm not usually much of a baker...I prefer to cook. One of my New Year's resolutions was to bake more, so here goes nothing! I've been seeing some really delicious-looking hand pie recipes (like this one) and thought it would be a fun thing to experiment with and put a bit of a lovey-dovey valentine spin on them! So, I whipped up these super simple mini strawberry rhubarb pies with x's & o's cut into the top, and I am thrilled at how easy they were and how they turned out!

 I totally took the easy way out and used store bought dough (so I guess this barely counts as baking-ha!) and started by punching out circles using a cup because I didn't have any round cookie cutters. Make sure to put a little bit of flour on the surface you are working with so that the dough doesn't stick. Then I put a spoon of canned strawberry rhubarb pie filling on top, and then put the second circle on top and pinched the edge all around using a fork. I baked them for approximately 20 minutes (my oven is very old so it took 25 minutes, but normally it should take around 20 minutes at 400 degrees. That's it that's all! Easy right?

While I was making the x&o pies, I started thinking that it would be fun to try s'more hand pies as well! To be honest, they didn't turn out that great because I baked them a little too long and didn't poke holes in them. That said, I'm definitely going to try them again! I used a bit of nutella, half of a large marshmallow and some graham cracker crumbs. Once I put the top dough circle on, I brushed on a tiny bit of melted butter and crumbled a bit more graham cracker crumbs on top! Yum!

Happy mini-pie baking! Don't be scared to create your own spin on these!

xo, Erin