These Ginger Spiced Pear Hand Pies are the ultimate holiday dessert! They are loaded with deliciously soft and spiced pears wrapped in a buttery hand held pie crust. Yes please!
This recipe is sponsored by Sprouts. Thank you for continuing to support the brands that I love!
Oh, pears. How I love thee! They are truly one of my favorite fruits. I used to not like them because honestly, growing up, I don’t know that I ever had a fresh pear.
I only ate whatever they gave at school lunches which usually consisted of the canned fruit in syrup. Definitely not my favorite treat to get for a school lunch, ha!
However – give me a fresh, ripe pear and I’m in love! I’ll take any kind – especially now that Sprouts has SO many unique varieties in their stores! Seriously, depending on your local store, they have 9 varieties available! It was hard to choose which one to use for this recipe!
I love going to Sprouts for all of my baking needs this holiday season – you should definitely go there to buy all of your ingredients for these hand pies.
Speaking of these hand pies…
Why You’ll Love These Hand Pies:
For this recipe, I did end up using Bosc pears. I found that they were sweet, tender but yet still had a crunch to them that I enjoyed texturally in the pies.
They are spiced to perfection with freshly grated ginger (hello flavor bomb), cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar and of course, BUTTER. I literally found myself straight up eating the filling with a spoon and having to stop myself. Self control, Haylie!
Then, you take a homemade or store-bought refrigerated pie crust. I found my refrigerated pie crust at Sprouts and it’s SO easy to work with and delicious. Win win!
You use a biscuit cutter to make mini pies – mine was a (insert inches here) and one 9 oz. crust made about 8 mini pies.
The inside of the pie crusts are loaded with the spiced pears and then topped with the other half of the pie crust.
The result? Golden brown, baked to perfection hand held pies. They are coated with delightful raw sugar to give a crunch and filled with those warm spiced ginger pears. Yes please.
Seriously – a warm pie you can hold with your hands! My dream world. So let’s get into exactly what you need to make them!
Ingredients You Need:
- 9 oz. refrigerated Store bought pie crust
- Bosc pears
- Salted butter
- Cornstarch
- Cinnamon, Nutmeg
- Fresh ginger
- Brown Sugar
- Turbinado Sugar
- Egg wash
Best Pie Baking Tips:
One of my favorite things about this recipe is how truly simple it is! When it comes to holiday desserts, I’m all for easy + quick options that taste delicious. And this one 100% fits that description!
So – let’s start off by, of course, preheating the oven to 350 degrees.
Chop up the Bosc pears into small bite size pieces – like this!
Add them to a heated pan that has been warming with butter. Yes, melted butter – the key to my heart!
Add in the spices, grated ginger, brown sugar and cornstarch and stir together to combine. Let it cook on medium heat for 4-5 minutes to help soften the pears and help the flavors come together.
Once done, remove from the heat and let the filling cool completely! This is a really important step because we don’t want to put hot pie filling into these cute little hand pies.
But in the meantime, while that is cooling, you can start working on your pies themselves!
Like I mentioned earlier, I used a biscuit cutter to make my hand pies but you can make them as large or small as you want – just know you might have to adjust the baking temperature if they aren’t this size.
My pie crust yielded about 8 pies with a couple of teeny tiny small ones on the side.
One of my favorite tips is to not waste the “scraps” of dough – but instead, take the scraps, roll it into a ball, roll it out using a rolling pin and make more pies! It’s perfectly good dough – just might look a little rough around the edges 😉
Add about 1-2 tbsp of pear filling on top of the pie crust – you don’t want it to be too full or else they will leak out when they bake.
You most likely WILL have pear filling leftover and that’s okay! You can eat it by the spoonful or do like I did and add it on top of oatmeal the next morning. Yum!
Top the pies with the other tiny pie crust and then use a fork to crimp the edges to seal it shut.
Poke a couple of holes in the top of the pie crust to help air come out.
Finally – brush with egg wash, sprinkle generously with raw sugar for that delicious added crunch and pop them in the oven!
When they’re done, they will be golden pie perfection. Crispy edges, soft and gooey inside, buttery and flaky. So. So good.
You can eat them as is, literally right with your hands but if you want to take it up a notch, you can always add some lightly whipped cream on top or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
And if you want them extra yummy – be sure to drizzle some of that sticky sweet pear reduction sauce from your cooked pears you have left over top of them.
And eat up! Enjoy, my friends!
Did you like this recipe? Here are a few others you might like:
Pear and Ginger Crisp with Bourbon
Thank you so much for following along here, friends! Want to see more? Be sure to follow ourbalancedbowl on Instagram and tag me with your photo if you end up making a recipe! You can also post a photo of your recipe to the Our Balanced Bowl Facebook page! I always love to see your re-creations! If you do make a recipe, it would make my whole day if you were to rate and comment so I can get your feedback! Lots of love! – Haylie
Ginger Spiced Pear Hand Pies
These Ginger Spiced Pear Hand Pies are the ultimate holiday dessert! They are loaded with deliciously soft and spiced pears wrapped in a buttery hand held pie crust. Yes please!
Ingredients
- 2 cups finely diced Bosc pears
- 2 tbsp salted butter
- 1 tsp cornstarch
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp freshly grated ginger
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup raw sugar mixed with ½ tsp cinnamon
- 1 egg, lightly beaten for eggwash
- 9 oz store bought pie crust
- whipped cream or ice cream for garnish (optional)
Instructions
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Dice Bosc pears into small bite size pieces. Cutting 3 Bosc pears should yield about 2 cups or so.
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Add 2 tbsp salted butter to a large skillet and let it melt on medium heat.
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Add in the 2 cups of pears as well as the ½ tsp cinnamon, ¼ tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp freshly grated fresh ⅓ cup brown sugar and 1 tsp cornstarch.
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Cook for 4-6 minutes and then remove from the heat to let it cool and come to room temperature. The pears should be softer and covered in a sticky sweet syrup.
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Once the syrup has cooled, preheat the oven to 370 degrees.
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Roll out the 9 oz. store bought pie crust and use a 3 inch (in diameter) biscuit cutter to make 14-16 small circles.
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Add 1-2 tbsp of the cooled pear filling on top of HALF of the circled pie crusts.
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Use the remaining cut pies to top the pear filling.
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Use a fork to crimp the edges to seal the filling in. Also, use the fork to poke two holes in the top of the pies to create an air pocket.
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Lightly beat one egg and brush the tops of the pies with the egg wash.
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Mix together ¼ cup of raw sugar along with ½ tsp cinnamon and generously sprinkle the tops of the pies with this mixture.
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Bake at 370 degrees (or whatever temperature your store bought pie crust says!) on a lined baking sheet with parchment paper for 25-30 minutes or until the tops are golden brown.
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Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes and then eat up! Top with whipped cream, ice cream or just eat it straight from the pan! Don’t forget to drizzle some of that sticky sweet pear syrup on top!
This was SO GOOD! Most of my kids normally don’t love pears, but they couldn’t get enough of this! Thank you for sharing it! I’ve been craving pears since my son spilled some pear juice all over our couch a few days ago. The pro? The whole room smelled like pears. The con? The whole room smelled like pears lol. We got a furniture cleaning and it smells normal again, but I’d like the pear aroma to be caused by desserts like this one, not from juice in our couch. Anyways, thanks for sharing!
I absolutely loveeeee this recipe! Thanks for sharing your review, Jeanie! 🙂