OK, strawberries. Hurry the heck up.
With the bi-polar weather that we’ve had this spring in Peterborough, my sources are telling me that berry season probably won’t start in earnest for another couple of weeks. Which means we have to get more creative with our seasonal sweet-teeth.
Luckily, there is still plenty of rhubarb to go around. Our patch just keeps on producing and producing. Actually, we can pretty much harvest all summer if we thin it enough and take special care — though we’re traditionally spring and fall rhubarb eaters.
Yesterday, I decided that I wanted to make Krista a special breakfast treat for this morning — she was away on the weekend, home for the night, and was then getting up at 4:30 this morning to go on a 4-day canoe trip with twenty-some-odd high school kids. She deserved something special.
And this is what I came up with:
Rhubarb Hand Pies.
4 cups of chopped rhubarb (1/2 inch slices)
Between 1/2 and 1 cup of demerara sugar — depending how tart you like things. I go with closer to a 1/2.
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons orange juice
2 10-inch sheets of frozen puff pastry (with butter)*
1 egg — well beaten
1/2 cup icing sugar
2 teaspoons orange juice
demerara sugar crystals
1. Rinse and chop rhubarb. Toss with orange juice, cinnamon, and sugar.
2. Bring mixture to boil over medium-high heat.
3. Turn heat down to low/medium-low and simmer until rhubarb just starts to get soft — 5-8 minutes.
4 Drain rhubarb though a colander, then refrigerate for 45 minutes.
5. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
6. Unroll pastry onto a floured counter and divide each piece into 4 squares. Place squares onto 2 parchment-lined baking trays.
7. Scoop roughly 2 tablespoons of rhubarb filling onto each square — in an elongated mound.
8. Brush egg along the outside of the square.
9. Fold your pastry in half and crimp all edges with a fork. Brush with your egg wash.
10. Bake for 17-20 minutes, or until golden brown and puffy.
11. Let cool on a wire rack until they reach room temperature.
12. Meanwhile, mix icing sugar and orange juice together until smooth.
13. Once the pies are cool, brush your glaze over top — don’t go nuts here, just enough to give it some shine.
14. Sprinkle with your demerara sugar crystals.
* I know… I know… It’s just that, well… I make lousy pastry.