Chocolate Filled Pocket Pies

This is the type of recipe I really like, now that I have made it once the sky is the limit on different variations. I hate being confined to a recipe and that is the reason I started this blog, to force myself to follow recipes, in order to expand my culinary knowledge. Now down to business a pocket pie is exactly what it sounds like, a pie that could fit in your pocket. Many cultures around the world have their own variations some sweet, some savoury and some both, but the key is that this pie can be eaten on the go. One of the most famous varieties comes from Cornwall in the south of England. Miners would take pocket pies wrapped in newspaper down into the mines with them, so when lunch time came all they had to do was unwrap it and enjoy. Often one end of the pie would be filled with a savoury filling, basically like a stew, and the other end would be a sweet filling. Lunch and dessert all in one, what an idea! I hope I am not the only one who didn't make the connection between Cornish and Cornwall, Cornish being something from Cornwall. The Cornish "pasty" was some popular it was said the devil would never come to Cornwall for fear of being cooked into a pie.

This particular pie crust comes together via the biscuit method. Incorporating a fat into flour until it creates a crumbly texture and then stirring in some liquid. In this case the fat was shortening which gives the dough its flakiness and the liquid was milk. The filing was made from mainly butter sugar and cocoa powder, and this recipe makes a lot of filling! Once the dough is rolled out into rounds and the filling is complete we enter the danger zone: filling the pies. The recipe warns not to over fill or you will be sorry and of course I was sorry. I though I could crimp down the edges enough that I would be fine with a nice amount of filling... nope. Before we open that can of worms there are three cooking methods: baking, deep frying and pan frying. I went with pan frying because it is fastest. Now back to the filling dilemma, after a few minutes in the pan my crimp was pushed right out of the way by the chocolaty volcano that was oozing its way out of the pie. The recipe even warned that filling usually contain a good deal of water which turns to steam and increases in volume my about 1700 times. There was a reason steam used to power trains. Despite all the smoke from the burning filling left in the pan the pies turned out really good still. I think if all the filling had stayed inside the pie it would be overwhelmingly sweet, so maybe it was a good thing after all. Pan frying was fast but I think I would have preferred that more flaky pastry that comes from baking.

Verdict: would make again. There are so many options for fillings once you have the dough down pat you could have a different filling for each day of the year. Take my advice though for filling, when you think you have a good amount take about half of it away and you should be good.

Pocket Pie with Chocolate or Curried Mango Filling