My MawMaw used to make these perfect little sweet dough pies with a custard filling, and she passed that hand-written recipe down to my mom. When we were young, my mom would make these for us with all kinds of fillings. She’s creative like that.
And this recipe is versatile like that. Listed below, I have the steps and ingredients for a homemade apple pie filling that shines in these sweet dough hand pies. But you can fill them with a peach, custard, or blackberry filling if that floats your boat. Apple just floats my boat!
Overall, it’s a pretty simple recipe. One thing you may not recognize is “aquafaba”. If you aren’t familiar, it’s just the liquid from a can of chickpeas. The protein structure acts surprisingly similarly to eggs. I had to replace those somehow! I promise the rest of the recipe is exactly as it was written on my MawMaw’s recipe card.
The ingredients and instructions below will come in two parts – the crust and the filling. The crust comes together fairly quickly in a stand mixer using the beater attachment. The long part is waiting for the dough to chill, but trust me — this is absolutely necessary if you don’t want a huge pie mess on your hands.
I repeat: CHILL THE DOUGH! Turns out MawMaw didn’t write that note down for her health.
The filling is super easy too, with only a few ingredients. Again, feel free to go rogue on this and try out other fillings.
If you are using a store-bought pie filling (no judgement), just skip the Filling sections.
Ingredients
Crust
- 1/2 cup soy milk
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 3/4 cup vegetable shortening
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 2 tbsp aquafaba
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 3 1/2 cups flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- pinch nutmeg
Filling
- 4 fuji apples
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
Instructions
Crust
- Whisk together the soy milk and apple cider vinegar in a measuring cup or small bowl. Set aside to thicken for 5-10 minutes.
- In a stand mixer, cream together the vegetable shortening and sugar.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the aquafaba, baking soda, & baking powder. It should fizz up.
- In the stand mixer, add the aquafaba mixture and the soy milk mixture to the creamed sugar. Combine.
- Sift in the flour, salt, & nutmeg. You should be able to pinch the dough together. See photo above.
- Use your hands to pat the dough together into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap.
- Allow to cool in the fridge for at least 2 hours before rolling out. You can prepare the filling while it chills.
Filling
- Peel and slice the apples into thin wedges.
- Add the apples with all of the remaining ingredients to a medium pot and heat on medium low. It will look dry at first, but the apples and sugars will create liquid in the pot.
- Continue to cook the mixture down, stirring regularly, until the apples are easily pierced with a fork (but not falling apart – remember they will cook in the oven too).
- Allow to cool.
All together now…
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll out the chilled dough to 1/4 inch thick.
- Using a bowl or pot lid, cut the dough into circles approximately 5 inches in diameter.
- Take about 5 apple wedges of pie filling and place in the bottom half of each dough circle. Carefully fold the top half of the dough circles over the bottom half, covering the apple pie filling.
- Crimp the edges with a fork and use a knife to place 3 small slashes on the top. Transfer to baking sheet.
- Bake for approximately 18 minutes. Allow to cool before removing the pies. If you’re impatient, enjoy warm with some vegan ice cream.
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