Bake my chocolate lava cakes next!
Happy national PIE DAY! Yes, today January 23rd is National Pie Day.
Let’s spread it all around. โฅ
This past week, I’ve been working with chocolate/cocoa pie dough. It’s not heavy on the chocolate because I found that to be nearly impossible. However, there’s a slight cocoa taste that will surely complement a chocolate ganache filling. Since Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and, well, because the world needs a little more love (and always more chocolate!)… I made HEART hand pies.
Today let’s look at step-by-step photos and chat about:
- Chocolate pie dough
- The filling
- Bringing it all together!
And add a heart shaped cookie cutter to your Amazon cart if you don’t already have one. You can use it for making Valentine’s Day cookies, too!
The chocolate pie dough is an all-butter pie crust. I prefer to make regular pie crust with a mix of shortening and butter, but I found the best results for *chocolate* pie dough with all butter. The dry ingredients are like regular pie dough, but we’ll sub out some flour for unsweetened cocoa powder. Since there are no leavening agents, you can use either dutch-process or natural cocoa powder. I use dutch-process. Add a little sugar since cocoa can be bitter. And Instead of ice cold water, use ice cold milk. Cocoa powder has the tendency to dry things out, so I suggest a richer liquid, like milk or cream, in the pie dough. This is the same dough we use for chocolate pop tarts.
As always, keep your chocolate pie dough super cold at all times. These guarantee chocolate pie dough success: (1) cold ingredients and (2) chilling the pie dough before shaping it.
After the pie dough has chilled, roll it out and cut into shapes.
Quick tip: place the heart shapes in the refrigerator so they stay cold as you prepare the hand pie filling.
The filling is a simple chocolate ganache made from pure chocolate and heavy cream. Pure chocolate like those 4 ounce bars you get next to the chocolate chips in the baking aisle (Baker’s brand, Ghirardelli baking bars, etc). But here’s a little secret to amp up the flavor. Add PEANUT BUTTER. This, of course, is optional and you can make a plain chocolate ganache if preferred. But if you’re not concerned about the chocolate hand pies being nut-free, why not?
I’ll include the optional addition of peanut butter in the recipe. My pictured hand pies were filled with peanut butter chocolate ganache!! โ
When assembling the chocolate hand pies, make sure you brush the edges of the bottom heart with egg wash. This helps the top heart stick. Fill with a spoonful of ganache, then crimp the pie crust edges with a fork.
Add a little egg wash and coarse sugar on top of the hand pies before the oven. The chocolate hand pies will take about 15-18 minutes in a hot oven. Don’t overbake! I overbaked my first batch and they tasted very dry. Tasty, yes… but I needed a gallon of water after 1 bite. You only want to bake them until the edges are pretty set. The filling should be warm and a little gooey. Deeee-lish.
Top with more chocolate (and you can melt it down with peanut butter!!) and you’ve got yourself a triple chocolate heart-shaped treat.
These sorta remind me of chocolate pop tarts. And, actually, this is exactly how we make homemade brown sugar cinnamon pop tarts!
Naturally, these chocolate heart hand pies are a lovely choice for Valentine’s Day. For even more inspiration, here are 36+ Valentine’s Day dessert recipes.
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Chocolate Hand Pies
- Prep Time: 2 hours, 45 minutes
- Cook Time: 18 minutes
- Total Time: 4 hours
- Yield: 14 3-inch hand pies
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
How to make delicious, warm, and gooey chocolate hand pies with chocolate pie dough and chocolate ganache filling!
Ingredients
- 2 and 1/4 cups (281g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1/4 cup (21g) unsweetened natural or dutch-process cocoa powder
- 2 Tablespoons (24g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (16 Tbsp; 226g) unsalted butter, very cold and cubed
- 1/2 cup (120ml) cold milk or heavy cream, plus more as needed*
- egg wash: 1 egg beaten with 1 Tablespoon (15ml) milk or heavy cream
- optional: 2 Tablespoons coarse sugar for topping
Filling
- one 4 ounce bar (113g) semi-sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped*
- 1/2 cup (120ml) heavy cream*
- optional: 2 Tablespoons (31g) creamy peanut butter
Topping
- 2 ounces (57g) semi-sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped*
- 1 teaspoon canola or vegetable oil
- optional: 1 Tablespoon (16g) peanut butter
Instructions
- Place the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, salt, and cubed butter into a large food processor. Pulse 15-20x until coarse crumbs form. Alternatively, you can use a large bowl and pastry cutter. Slowly drizzle in the cold milk or cream while pulsing (or stirring). After all the milk or cream is added, the dough should look slightly shaggy and be a little soft. If it’s too dry, add another Tablespoon of milk or cream. Try not to overwork the dough. Divide the dough in half and form each into 1 inch thick discs. Wrap each disc tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours and up to 5 days.
- On a floured work surface (you can “flour” with cocoa powder too!), carefully roll out each pie dough with a rolling pin. Cut into heart shapes (using a 3-inch heart cookie cutter). Re-roll any scraps. Refrigerate the hearts as you prepare the filling. (I make room and refrigerate them on 2 baking sheets.)
- Make the filling:ย Place chopped chocolate into a large bowl. Heat the cream in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Once it begins to boil, immediately remove from heat then pour over the chocolate. Stir gently and slowly using a wooden spoon until the ganache is smooth. Stir in peanut butter, if using. Allow it to cool for 15 minutes. During this time, it will slowly thicken.
- Preheat the oven to 400ยฐF (204ยฐC).
- Remove the hearts from the refrigerator. Arrange on 2 large baking sheets if you haven’t done so already. Brush the edges of half of the hearts with egg wash. Add a spoonful of filling on top of half of the hearts. Top with another heart (lightly stretch the top heart slightly if needed to cover). Press down the top edges to seal, then use a fork to crimp the sides to completely seal. Brush the top of each hand pie with egg wash. Top with coarse sugar, if desired.
- Bake the hand pies for 15-18 minutes, just until the edges are set. The tops of the hand pies may look a little soft. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before drizzling with chocolate and serving.
- Chocolate drizzle: Melt the chopped chocolate and oil (and peanut butter, if using) together in the microwave in 20 second increments, stirring after each until completely melted. You can also melt in a double boiler if you have one.ย Drizzle over pies.
- Cover and store leftover hand pies at room temperature for up to 2 days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: The chocolate pie dough can be made ahead of time and refrigerated for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 3 months. Allow to thaw overnight in the refrigerator before using. The hand pies can be prepared through step 5 and refrigerated for up to 2 days before baking. Bake hand pies freeze well for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and bring to room temperature before serving.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Food Processor | Pastry Cutter | Glass Mixing Bowls | Rolling Pin | Heart Cookie Cutter |ย Pastry Brush |ย Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mat or Parchment Paper | Double Boiler (optional)
- Temperature Matters: I suggest whole milk, half-and-half, or even heavy cream for the pie dough. Make sure it is ice cold.
- Chocolate: For the filling and topping, the chocolate used should be pure chocolate. Not chocolate chips. Pure chocolate produces the best tastingโand the best textureโfor both. Pure chocolate is typically sold in 4 ounce bars in the baking aisle. Look for Baker’s brand, Ghirardelli, Lindt, Nestle, etc.
- Heavy Cream: Chocolate ganache is made with heavy cream/heavy whipping cream. Alternatively, you can use 1/2 cup sour cream or crรจme fraiche. Instead of heating the sour cream or crรจme fraiche separately, melt either with the 4 ounces of chocolate in a double boiler until melted and combined. I find the best tasting ganache is with heavy cream.
- Quantity: This chocolate dough yields 2 9-inch pie crusts.
Reader Comments and Reviews
Hi Sallt and team! Iโd like to make these but the cookie cutter I gave is the Wilton comfort grip – dimensions are 7×5, so about double the size of yours? My question is, should I bake these longer due to the size? Or is the baking time more about the thickness of the dough so the larger hearts wonโt need to bake any longer?
Hi Jennifer! Larger hand pies will need to bake longer. We bake our similar 3×4 inch chocolate pop tarts for about 25 minutes. Yours will likely need longer!
I can’t say that I was disappointed with the end results at all, because they’re delicious – but they’re certainly not hand pies! Instead, I ended up with heart-shaped chocolate-filled flaky biscuits/croissants! I did use very cold everything (heavy cream on all liquids) and chilled my crusts overnight, but of note, (1) I needed to use probably 3/4+ cup heavy cream to even have it remotely resemble dough and not loose powder, and (2) I was cutting in by hand using a pastry cutter. Was it the liquid amount? Was it the size of my butter chunks (which did seem small and pebbly prior to adding liquids)? I’m chalking it up to a “happy accident” but would eventually love to still attempt an actual hand pie one day.
Canโt wait to make these for our Super Bowl party! How thin should I roll out the pie dough?
Hi Gabby, about 1/8-inch should be good. Enjoy!!
Hi! These look amazing and Iโm planning on making them for Valentineโs Day! My partner really loves raspberry though. Do you think I could put a little chocolate ganache in the filling as well as a little raspberry filling? I was going to base the filling on a raspberry version of your berry turnover filling.
Hi Jess, we can’t see why not. Sounds delicious! Let us know how it goes.
Fill with Nutella. Brilliant!
Could you fill this crust with a different filling? Like raspberry filling?
Yes, absolutely!
Hi Sally. I always get hung up making ganache. When I heat heavy cream (low and slow in a pan on the stove top) a skin starts forming immediately. Even when it’s not even close to signs of a “simmering” temperature (small bubbles around the edge of the pan). The happens regardless of how I heat the cream or milk, which ever I’m using. I’ve given up using the microwave for this process. Anyway, as I watch it heat, should I be skimming off the skin that inevitably forms? I cannot find any information regarding this when I google it. Am I doing something wrong? Help!
Hi Susan, The easiest way to avoid this if it keeps happening is to constantly stir the cream as it heats on the stovetop.
Thank you Sally. I made these on Sunday anyway and was determined to get the ganache right so I kept the temp on medium – I may have been heating too fast or using cold cream right out of the fridge – and stirred the whole time. Exactly as you advise. My “pies” turned out wonderful. Thank you for your reply!
Wonderful flaky not-too-sweet treats. Thank you!
Fantastic! We love Chocolate so we loved these. Very easy, fun and delicious!
Delicious recipe! I used heavy cream instead of milk in the crust and I did not find these hand pies too dry – I also made sure not to over-bake! Came out so yummy.
Next time I will cool and refrigerate the ganache filling longer than 15 minutes. After 15 min at room temp, the ganache was still quite liquid and made filling and sealing the pies a pain. After popping into the fridge for another 15-20 min, the ganache had firmed up enough to prevent spreading as I spooned onto the crust. Much easier to seal when chilled and I was able to get more filling inside! Might try with a fruit filling next time.
i really liked this but as with others, found the pastry a little too dry. definitely worth a bit of a tinker though. it was delicious!
Hi Sally,
How thick should the dough be rolled? Will 1/4 inch be too thin?
I usually aim for just about 1/4 inch thickness.
Hi Sally! I was wondering if I could fill the hand pies with a fruit jam instead of ganache? Thanks!
Yes you can! Enjoy!
I was very surprised by this dough! It was โstretchyโ for lack of a better word. I was sure I did something wrong but followed through with all the directions as I havenโt been led astray by Sally before. It was amazing! The dough was perfectly flaky, and the ganache really sent that chocolate flavor through. If it was too dry, it may have been over baked.
I made these tonight and found them to be flakey but too dry for my taste. Is that because of the cocoa?
These are amazing! I made half the batch with my almond filling which was just as great. How long would a 9 inch pie need to bake for and would i need to pre bake the crust?
I made this for Valentine’s Day, but because of lactose issues, I subbed in vanilla soy creamer for the cream in both the crust and the ganache. They turned out great and delicious, highly recommend!
I made these but instead of peanut butter, I used raspberry preserves! Good stuff