YIELD: 20 sand dollar pies

TIME:

Prep – 1 hour, 20 minutes

Chill – 1 hour

Bake – 15 minutes or until golden brown

During quarantine, cakes, pies, casseroles, and other sharable delights were considered unsanitary and undesirable. So I came up with a cookie-pie crossover: the sand dollar pie. Shaped like flat crustaceans, these buttery, jam-filled mini pies will take you right back to the coziness of a summer on the beach. 

Crust:

2 ½ cups flour

2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

½ cup lard, cubed

12 tbsp butter, cubed

Ice water, as needed

Filling:

jam, as needed

1. Chill the lard and butter in the freezer until rock solid. Preheat oven to 375℉.
2. While the fats are freezing, mix flour, sugar, and salt in a separate bowl and dump them into the food processor. 
3. Place chilled fats into the food processor and pulse until the dough is crumbly and no large chunks of lard or butter remain.
4. Spoon in ice water and pulse until the dough transforms from crumbly clumps to a smooth dough ball. Make sure not to overwork the dough so the crust remains soft and flaky after baking.
5. Separate the dough into two even sections and roll each into a flat disk. Wrap sections in plastic and chill for 1 hour in the refrigerator.
6. Once the dough is cooled, roll out one section on a floured surface. Make sure the sheet of dough is less than a quarter inch thick. Use the rim of a cup to cut out circles in the dough and place on a baking sheet. These will serve as the bottom of the pie.
7. Roll and cut the second disk. With a small knife, create small slits in the circles in a sand dollar pattern to function as air holes. These will serve as the top of the pie. Make sure there are an even number of circles.
8. Place roughly a tablespoon of jam on each bottom circle. Carefully position a patterned circle on top of each bottom circle so that the mini pies resemble round ravioli.
9. Crimp the edges of each mini pie with a fork to secure the jam inside. You may brush the top of each pie with egg wash and sprinkle it with sugar for a sweet glaze.
10. Bake the tray of sand dollar pies for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Let the pies cool for 10 minutes before serving.