Baked...Not Fried.

We've been working over the last few weeks on the concept of a hand pie.  And if you aren't familiar, a hand pie is a completely contained and portable pie that you carry with...well, your hand.  Designed to eat on the go, you don't need to fuss with a plate or a fork to enjoy your pie. After baking, we slip the hand pie into a parchment paper cone, seal it with a PJP sticker, and you are set to walk, drive, talk on your phone, or eat it quickly in your car so no one sees you and asks to share.

Hand pies are sized between the Jelly Jar pie and the Baby pie - more of a legitimate slice of pie, but with more crust.  Basically, we cut a circle of dough and fill it with whatever our hearts desire, fold it over and bake it.  We've been experimenting with sweet AND savory hand pies and I am having an entire Sophie's choice about which one I love more.  Any of our traditional sweet pies are delicious styled as a hand pie.  But creating a hand pie out of bacon, egg, mushrooms, and cheese...ummmm...DELICIOUS.

In practice, hand pies are often fried.  We called the Columbia Department of Health about the possibility of having a fryer in PJP just for this job.  In a first, the Health Department said they had no objections against it - but to check with the fire department as well.  So we called the fire department and they asked that we send over a picture and description of what we were talking about exactly...

This is a Cuisinart CDF-100 Compact 1.1-Liter Deep Fryer that retails on Amazon.com for $39.99.  In response to this photo, the fire department alerted us that we would need to install a hood system and a fire suppression system.  In short, we would need about $40,000 or more worth of equipment to legally operate a $39.99 fryer.  Suffice it to say, PJP Hand Pies will be the baked variety of hand pie, thank you very much for asking.

This Friday is National Pie Day.  We can't think of a better way to celebrate pie than by making hand pies and selling them like they are going out of style for the low price of $4 each.  Put it on your calendar...PJP's first day of hand pies will be a milestone event.  Sort of like when someone decided to make wine out of the Muscato grape.  Or when someone decided to dip the rim of a glass in salt before pouring a margarita.  Or when someone thought adding cheese to a burger might be an interesting concept.  You get the picture - monumental.