Oh..... sweet (cherry filled) child of mine.
How much strife you've caused me. How I wish you would have been pie. How in the world did I get myself into this??? If you follow me on social media, you may have seen my people pot pies. In response to these, someone sent the idea to turn them into cherry hand pies. I took this as a challenge, and I'll be frank, it certainly turned out to be. I went with an all butter crust which was so delicious but certainly not a medium which holds its shape during baking. Batch after batch, they went into the oven looking like perfect little children, and came out as evil blobs with nostrils. I was cry-laughing in the kitchen past 2am before I finally washed me feet and called it a night. (No I didn't get the saying wrong, I literally had to wash my feet. They were covered in powdered sugar.)
The next day, I decided to go with a trusted recipe for no spread sugar cookies and turn these into cherry filled cookies instead of pies. Entirely sweeter, but boy...they are delicious, and most importantly, THEY LOOK LIKE CHILDREN! Pretty spooky huh?
We are going to follow Preppy Kitchen's Sugar cookie recipe for this. Feel free to go watch his tutorial and then come back to me once you have the dough made. No need to refrigerate.
INGREDIENTS:
▢ 4 cups flour 480g, sifted
▢ 1/3 cup corn starch 40g
▢ 3/4 tsp salt 4g
▢ 1 cup unsalted butter 227g
▢ 1 cup sugar 200g
▢ 2 eggs
▢ 1 tsp vanilla extract 5mL
INSTRUCTIONS:
Sift the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
In your standing mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time until incorporated.
Add the vanilla extract.
Add the dry ingredients and mix until incorporated. It should come together like a fluffy magical ball of play dough.
No need to chill, we are going to use this dough at room temp, but you may want to store it in a bag so it doesn't dry out. If this happens, just wet your hands a bit to moisten the dough.
Dust your silicone mold with flour and press a small amount of dough in, carefully molding it into all of the wonderful details.
Add a small amount of pie filling, careful not to over fill.
Flatten out another piece of dough and create a seal around the edge by gently pressing.
Remove the excess dough with a butter knife and smooth out any sharp edges.
Freeze for a couple of minutes, in the silicone mold, until the dough is firm, then carefully remove, and redefine any details you need to. Don't forget to add a slit to the top of the head to allow steam to escape.
Return to freezer for another 10 minutes before baking.
Place them on a non-stick baking sheet and bake at 350F for 10 minutes. Let them cool, then bake again for 10 more minutes. (This allows the cookie to bake, without heating up the filling too much which would cause expansion and ruin the shape.)
Let the cookies a cool and drizzle them in a thin glaze (just a bit of powdered sugar and milk) as a finishing touch.