🎃👻Halloween Hand Pies 👻🎃

Makes 8 pies

Ingredients:

1 recipe of pie crust dough, well chilled (See recipe online here!)
5¼ ounces butternut squash, peeled, seeded and grated
about ½ of a large squash
2 apples, peeled, cored, and diced; gala and fuji work well
½ cup raisins ¼ cup crystalized ginger, chopped
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
1½ teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon lemon juice squeezed from a fresh lemon
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons coarse sugar

To make the filling:

1. In a saucepan over a medium-low heat, combine the butternut squash, apples, raisins, crystalized ginger, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and cinnamon.

2. Heat gently for 5 minutes, stirring often so it doesn't scorch. Stop cooking once the squash is tender, but before it becomes mushy.

3. Allow the mixture to cool before using to fill your hand pies.

To assemble and finish:

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F.

2. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

3. Use a well-floured rolling pin to roll the dough out to ⅜-inches thick on a floured surface.

4. Cut the dough with a pumpkin cookie cutter (we used a 4 inch cutter).

5. Reuse the scraps of dough as necessary to avoid wasting dough.

6. Place the cut shapes into the refrigerator for 15-30 minutes, covered, to chill.

7. Remove the dough from the fridge and, one at a time, brush the edges of each with beaten egg.

8. Spoon 2 heaping teaspoons of the filling onto half of the pumpkin shapes.

9. With a small paring knife, cut out the jack o’lantern faces on the other half of the pumpkin shapes.

10. Set the cut out jack o’lantern pumpkin shapes on top of the pumpkins with the filling. Crimp images with a fork

11. Brush the outside surface of the pastry with the egg, then sprinkle with the sugar, and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden.