Cherry Hand Pies

Ingredients

• 1 package (2 crusts) refrigerated pie dough, or a double batch of homemade dough
• 2 cups thick cooked cherry pie filling (cherries, sugar, cornstarch, cooked down until thick)
• 1 egg, beaten (for egg wash)
• 2 tbsp coarse sugar, for sprinkling

Method

1. Preheat oven to 400°F (205°C) and line a baking sheet with parchment.
2. Roll out the dough and cut into 5-inch rounds (or squares).
3. Spoon a small amount of the 2 cups thick cooked cherry pie filling (cherries filling onto one half of each round, leaving a border, then fold over and crimp the edges shut with a fork.
4. Arrange the hand pies on the prepared sheet, brush with the egg wash, sprinkle with coarse sugar, and cut a small slit in the top of each.
5. Bake for 18–22 minutes, until golden brown.
6. Cool slightly before serving.

The Tale of Cherry Hand Pies

Story updated September 15, 2026

Cherry hand pies belong to the same broad American tradition as apple and peach hand pies: small, portable fruit pastries brought to the colonies and later the rural South and Appalachia by Scots-Irish, English, and other European settlers, who adapted old-world hand pies and pasties to whatever fruit was on hand. Cherries, cultivated in North America since colonial times and later grown commercially in large quantities in states like Michigan, made a natural filling once sugar and canning or drying methods made the fruit available beyond its brief summer season. Like most hand pie variations, the cherry version has no single documented inventor or date; it developed gradually alongside other fruit hand pies as a way to use seasonal produce in a form sturdy enough to pack for farm work, school lunches, or travel. The style, often fried rather than baked, remained a fixture of Southern home cooking and church suppers through the twentieth century and has more recently found a second life in bakeries and specialty dessert shops.