These pumpkin hand pies start with a homemade pie dough, are filled with a simple pumpkin pie filling, and finished with a sweet maple glaze. Easily portable personal pumpkin pies with extra flaky crust… what could be better? Like my apple hand pies and chocolate pastry tarts, this is a fun baking project you can absolutely handle.
How do I love thee, pumpkin pie, let me count the ways: there’s my favorite classic pumpkin pie; a large pumpkin slab pie; bite-size mini pumpkin pies; oh, and easier-than-pie pumpkin pie bars… but today I have a new variation on this favorite fall theme to share with you: pumpkin hand pies!
Because what’s more fun than a homemade, individually portioned pie just for you, no sharing required? It’s one of the many things I love about apple hand pies, after all. Here are some more reasons to add pumpkin hand pies to your fall dessert repertoire:
Why You’ll Love These Pumpkin Hand Pies
- They’re like pumpkin pop-tarts, only fresh & homemade 🙂
- Easy to eat grab-and-go dessert, no serving utensils or plates required
- A pumpkin pie filling just as tasty as this reader-favorite pumpkin pie
- Delicious maple glaze icing on top
- Can be served warm, room temperature, or cold, and honestly taste great each and every way
- No blind/par-baking pie crust step required
- Hand pies can be prepared days ahead, or frozen for up to 3 months
Plus, pumpkin hand pies give you more crust than filling in every bite. So if you love mega flaky buttery pie crust and the flavor of pumpkin pie (but don’t absolutely love the texture), this is the perfect solution.
Start With a Buttery, Flaky Pie Crust
First step is to make your pie dough. Because there’s a higher crust-to-filling ratio in hand pies, we want a crust that tastes GOOD.
I recommend using my all-butter pie crust for exceptional flavor and flake. It’s the same crust I use when I make these homemade brown sugar cinnamon pop-tarts. The recipe yields 2 crusts, and you’ll use both in this recipe to produce 12–16 hand pies.
Can I use store-bought pre-made pie dough instead? You absolutely can, but the crust may not be quite as thick and flaky, or as flavorful. You need 2 pie crusts, as if you were making 2 single-crust pies.
Pumpkin Pie Filling Ingredients
You need just a bowl and a whisk to make the pumpkin hand pie filling—no mixer required. Whisk together:
How to Assemble Pumpkin Hand Pies
You don’t need a special cookie cutter to make these pretty half-moon-shaped pumpkin pies. Simply place a bowl that is about 5 inches diameter, give or take, upside down on your rolled-out pie dough and cut around it with a knife. Easy, right? If you don’t have a bowl this size, cut a 5-inch circle from a piece of paper.
You’ll need to re-roll the scraps a few times to use up all the dough, just like we do when cutting out sugar cookies.
After I cut the dough into circles, I pile the circles onto a plate and refrigerate for about 15 minutes. Remember what I said above? The colder the pie dough is, the easier it is to work with.
Then it’s time to fill the hand pies.
Spoon just about 1.5–2 Tablespoons of the filling onto one half of each circle, leaving a border around the edge. Fold the circle in half over the filling, then crimp the pie crust edges with a fork to seal.
Use a sharp knife to cut a couple slits in the top of each hand pie to vent steam during baking. Finally, brush with a little egg wash to help the crusts brown and develop that pretty shine.
Alternate Shapes
You can shape the hand pies however you want. I use a 3.5-inch round cookie cutter to make my apple hand pies. You can use a similarly sized pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter, such as this one.
You could also shape into rectangles.. I use a ruler and a pizza cutter and cut the dough into 3×4-inch rectangles. Bake time will be more or less depending on size—just bake until the crust is golden brown.
Maple Glaze
This simple maple glaze is the icing on the… hand pie. It’s a flavorful finishing touch everyone loves. To make it, you need: confectioners’ sugar, pure maple syrup, milk, a pinch of salt, and either maple or vanilla extract. If you’ve made these reader-favorite maple brown sugar cookies before, you probably have some maple extract in your kitchen! But if you can’t find it, or simply want a more subtle maple flavor, you can use vanilla extract instead.
And if you don’t love the flavor combo of maple mingling with pumpkin, feel free to use a plain vanilla icing or the cinnamon icing from these homemade pop tarts instead.
Once the pumpkin hand pies are cool enough to handle, you can dip them in the glaze. The glaze sets in about 1 hour.
Pumpkin Hand Pies Recipe
Ingredients You’ll Need
Instructions
- Prepare either pie crust recipe through step 5. (Again, I use and recommend this all-butter pie dough.) The dough must chill for at least 2 hours in the refrigerator (or up to 5 days) before using.
- On a lightly floured work surface, roll out one of the discs of chilled dough (keep the other one in the refrigerator). Turn the dough about a quarter turn after every few rolls. At any sign of sticking, sprinkle some flour underneath, then keep rolling. Roll out until it’s about 1/8–1/4-inch thick. Place a bowl that’s about 5 inches in diameter upside down on the pie dough. (If you don’t have a bowl this size, cut a 5-inch circle from a piece of paper and use that as your guide.) Using a sharp knife, cut around the outside of the bowl. You should now have a 5-inch circle of pie crust. Repeat; re-rolling scraps as needed. Place cut circles on a plate/baking sheet in the refrigerator to keep cold. The colder the shaped dough, the easier it is to work with. Repeat with 2nd disc of pie dough and refrigerate all cut circles for at least 15 minutes before filling the hand pies. You should have about 12–16 circles in total.
- Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400°F (204°C). Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, egg, brown sugar, flour, pumpkin pie spice, vanilla extract, and salt until completely combined. (Makes about 1 and 1/2 cups of filling.)
- Spoon and spread filling, about 1.5–2 Tablespoons per hand pie, onto one half of each crust circle, leaving a 1/4-inch border around the edges. Fold the bare half of the circle over top of the filling to make a half-moon shape. Press your fingers all around the edges to seal, then crimp the pie crust edges with a fork. Place the hand pies on the prepared baking sheets. Lightly brush the tops of the pies with egg wash. Using a sharp knife, cut 2–3 slits in the tops, to vent steam. At this point the hand pies can be baked, but if they don’t feel cool to the touch anymore, refrigerate for at least 15 minutes and up to 1 hour before baking. The colder they are going into the oven, the better they’ll hold their shape. (After 15 minutes, they may begin to leak a little pumpkin liquid out of the sides. That’s completely normal and fine. Blot it with a paper towel before baking.)
- Bake for about 22–25 minutes or until they’re golden brown on top and around the edges. Halfway through baking, rotate the baking sheets from top to bottom/bottom to top. Remove from the oven and allow the hand pies to cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool until ready to handle.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the confectioners’ sugar, maple syrup, milk, maple or vanilla extract, and salt. When the hand pies are cool enough to handle, dip the tops of each into the icing. If the flaky layers of crust get stuck in the icing, switch to drizzling the icing on top instead of dipping. Place iced hand pies on a cooling rack set over a baking sheet or piece of parchment paper to catch drips. The icing will set in about 1 hour, but you can certainly enjoy the hand pies before that! Serve warm or at room temperature.
- Cover leftovers and store at room temperature for up to 1 day or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
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