Fruit Pockets

A few weeks ago, I started wondering about whole wheat pie crust. I eat very little “white” bread.  I never make white bread.  I began to wonder why I’m satisfied with white flour pie for my pie crust. This quickly led to Google and a recipe search. It wasn’t long after that initial search that I made a quiche with sharp cheddar and left over ham accompanied by a whole wheat crust. I was hooked.

When you read about whole wheat and grains, you’ll consistently run into the word “nutty”. Not as in, “Those whole wheat people are absolutely nutty” but more as, “I really enjoyed the nutty flavor of the stone ground wheat, milled flax, insert grain of choice here, etc.” As the crust is one of my favorite parts of the quiche I was thrilled by the additional texture and added flavors of the whole wheat crust and yes, it did add a nice “nutty” flavor.

Here, I have to say, and not to come across as unduly prideful, but I do make a mighty mean pie crust, a melt in your mouth, lighter than air pie crust. What I found with my whole wheat crust was that white flour crust is a piece of cake but wheat flour takes some patience. It’s not that mixing it up is any more difficult, it's that the pastry dough tends to break more easily.   Where I can easily transfer a white flour crust to a pie plate, whole wheat crust doesn’t like to move about as much. After reading a few tips, I settled on rolling out the pie crust on wax paper (I would have rather used parchment paper but was out) and this made both the rolling and transfer much easier. Also, with a whole wheat crust, it may be necessary to do some “patching” in the pie plate. All of this is a bit more troublesome but, I’ve found the taste and texture of the whole wheat is worth the effort.

About this time, if you read the title of the entry you’re beginning to wonder what in the world quiche and pie crust have to do with fruit pockets. Perhaps, I’ve reeled you in under false pretenses.

Oh no my friends, here’s the thing... when you make a pie crust recipe that’s large enough to make either two single crusts or one double crust and you only need one single crust for the quiche, you have one crust left over. Often, I will stick the left over crust in the freezer for later but on that day I had peaches to use and thought how really nice mini-peach pies would be and, wouldn’t they taste nice with a whole wheat crust. I couldn’t find a recipe that did exactly what I wanted to do so I just went by instinct and thought I’d share the finished the product.

I’ve made these little pies four or five times now and just love them. I make up several, cool them, stick them in the fridge and take them to work in my lunches, a perfect small sweet to cap off a lunchtime meal. While I’ve been making these with peach filling, I think apples and pears would be yummy too and now that we are into autumn, I’ll probably try them out with apples.

There are three steps:

The Fruit Filling:

You'll need about 1 cup of chopped fresh fruit.  Since you're making the fruit filling for a small pastry pocket, I recommend slicing the fruit in fairly small pieces but not so small that they are diced.  Next, toss with 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 tsp cinnamon.  Set the fruit aside.

The Pastry:

1 cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
(I usually make about 1/4 c of this amount regular whole wheat for that "nutty" texture.)
1/2 tsp. salt
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter (sliced)
2 to 4 Tbsp. ice water

Sift or mix flour(s) and salt together. Using either a food processor or pastry blender cut butter into flour mixture. (I'm a recent convert to cutting butter into pastry using the food processor.  This is so easy.)

When done, your butter flour mixture should resemble a course meal.

If you are using a food processor, transfer mixture to small bowl. Sprinkle mixture with ice water and mix until dough is just able to form ball. (Be careful here to not overwork the dough as it will result in a tough pastry.) Wrap the dough in paper or plastic and let rest and chill in refrigerator for 10 to 20 minutes.

A note about whole wheat pastry flour:  Whole wheat pastry four is ground to a very fine consistency compared to other whole wheat flours.  It is not the same as white four.  If you rub it between your fingers, you feel the grittiness of the ground grain.  You can make this recipe without the whole wheat pastry flour if you do not have a place to purchase whole wheat pastry flour.

Putting It All Together:

Roll out pastry dough on wax paper or parchment paper.  (As I mentioned before, whole wheat pastry cracks much more easily than simple white pastry dough.  The paper will help you work with the dough more easily.)  Using a biscuit cutter or glass cut out pie circles.

Lift one circle from paper, hold in hand like a taco, and add a small spoonful of prepared fruit filling. 

Crimp the edges of the pastry together, starting at folded side of pastry, and crimp alternate sides until the pastry is crimped all the way across. This forms your pocket. Using fingers, pinch dough to make scalloped edge.  (I found that with this pastry a scalloped edge is much easier than trying make a decorative edge with fork tines as the tines tend to puncture the pocket.) 

Lay pocket on ungreased baking sheet.

Once all pockets are made and on baking sheet, brush with butter and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake at 350 for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown.  This will make about 10 Fruit Pockets.

I know this seems a bit complicated but things really come together pretty quickly once you get going.  And boy, are they yummy!