I know this sounds like hyperbole, but these fried strawberry hand pies are truly extraordinary, and that’s hardly a surprise. We’re talking fried dough here, peeps, of course they are amazing. And fried dough filled with lightly sweetened berries and a hefty dusting of confectioners’ sugar? I mean, duh, you will basically lose your mind when you eat these. I had been planning on making baked hand pies for at least a year now, an I have finally done so, but the idea of making fried hand pies came to me quite recently when I stumbled upon on a hand pie recipe in Huffington Post.
Now, I wish I could tell you what internet search led me to stumble upon fried pies (ie: what I was actually looking for), but I can’t recall. What I can tell you, however, is that I became obsessed, leading me to spend copious amounts of time surfing the web for fried pie recipes, folklore, gossip, etc., and that’s where things get interesting. The internet is bereft of fried pie scoops. Why, you ask? I haven’t a clue, and having now made fried pies and eaten kind of a lot, I am truly flummoxed.
Yes, I found a Food Network apple hand pie recipe and this fried fruit pie by the Pioneer Woman, and maybe one or two more of that ilk, but none of my go-to bloggers — those that I check in with whenever researching a new treat, if not on a daily basis — had even touched a fried hand pie with a ten foot pole. They had explored baked ones, but nary a fried pie in sight. Now, perhaps this is because all my baking peeps are watching their girlish figures and can’t wrap their minds around frying pie? I’m not sure. One recipe from Shrinking Kitchen did lure me me in with its promise of fried hand pies, only to pull a fast one and instruct me to bake them (and there was much bragging about the calories and fat saved by doing so). Um . . . no.
So I’d consider myself pretty lucky, if I were you, getting a recipe and all that for fried pies. And I certainly hope I am starting a trend of sorts. One thing I will tell you is that I kind of feel like I may have invented the “cropie.” Dominick Ansel has his cronut (a donut/croissant hybrid) and I have my cropie (a pie/croissant hybrid). No, my pie dough is not laminated, so I am taking some liberties here, but the flaky layers of my off the charts flaky pie dough with vodka – redux once fried? Words escape me. Please just go make these, and then tell me about it. I am hoping I can move the masses here, people, one fried-hand-pie-eater at a time.
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