Well, a curiosity of mine this fall was going to be if I could go this whole season without anything pumpkin—at least until Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is not Thanksgiving if I don’t have a slice (or four!) of pumpkin pie. Well, the joke’s on me because I didn’t even last until Halloween. And now that I’ve crossed that line, I think it’s about to get pumpkin crazy up in this house. Might as well!

It’s kind of like when you’re trying to eat healthy and go without sugar or something, but as soon as you cave and eat the one Krispy Kreme donut, your brain tries to tell you that you may as well eat the whole dozen!! Maybe it’s just me with this problem :)

For my church I get to meet with a group of about eight, 10-11 year olds and we get together every other week to do activities or a craft. They are the most fun group of girls and I absolutely love this opportunity I have to do this. We’ve really enjoyed doing some sewing projects, some card-making, and just this last week we finally did some baking together.

The other lady that does this with me thought it would be a really fun idea for the girls to make hand pies and make and roll out the dough, put the filling in, and fold and crimp them. We all had so much fun and these were so easy and delicious to make.

Technically, this recipe says they are inspired the by pumpkin pasties from Harry Potter, so these would be perfect to make if you are ever having a Harry Potter themed party of some kind, or just a fun thing to make on any afternoon. I really hope you enjoy these as much as we did!

Pumpkin Pasties from Harry Potter (AKA Pumpkin Hand Pies)

Ingredients:

1.5 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. Sugar

Pinch of salt

1 stick of cold, unsalted butter, diced

1 package of cold cream cheese, cut into coarse chunks

For the filling:

¾ cup canned of fresh pumpkin puree

1 large egg

Pinch of ground cloves

¼ tsp. Ground ginger

½ tsp. Cinnamon

¼ tsp. Salt

¼ cup sugar

Optional: turbinado sugar

For the dough:

Place dry ingredients in medium bowl and mix together. Add the cold, diced butter and mix it together with flour until you have what looks like coarse bread crumbs.

Add in the pieces of cream cheese and mix until the dough is very clumpy.

Turn dough out onto a lightly flour dusted surface and knead until a smooth dough has formed.

Wrap in plastic and chill for at least 30 minutes. Can be made in advance and frozen up to 3 months.

FOR THE FILLING:

In a saucepan, heat pumpkin with dry spices on medium-low heat until warmed. Remove from heat. Mix in egg, salt, and sugar. Set aside while you prepare the dough.

ASSEMBLY:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

On a floured surface, roll out the dough to about ¼-inch thickness and cut with round cookie or biscuit cutter. Place rounds onto a greased cookie sheet.

Spoon a small amount of pumpkin filling onto the bottom third of the dough circles.

Fold the circles over and seal the edges by either folding over and pinching with your fingers, or crimping with a fork.

Using a pastry brush, lightly glaze each pastry with beaten egg mixed with a little milk or water, Sprinkle on some turbinado sugar, if desired.

Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

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