It's best to make a fried pie crust closer to biscuit dough, rather than traditional, flakey sliced pie crust. Hand pie crusts must be durable and flexible enough to be fried and later handled to eat.

This is my version of the traditional 150+ year old recipe, and is on the tart side. But if you want a sweeter pie, then use 1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar in your filling.

I use dried peaches. Fresh peaches will work, but must be cooked down to a thick consistency.

Dried fruit is just right and makes a thick filling that doesn't need thickeners. This filling stays put pretty well when the pie is bitten into.

Filling Ingredients:

4 to 5 Dried Peach Halves, diced

1/2 to 3/4 cups Cane Sugar

1 teaspoon Kosher or Sea Salt

1 pat Dairy Butter

1 tablespoon Lemon Juice

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Water to barely cover peaches

Dice dried peaches to 1/2" pieces. Add all filling ingredients to a saucepot, add water enough to barely cover the peaches. Stir to dissolve salt and sugar. Bring filling to a rolling boil for about 5 minutes, stir and cover, turn off heat. Allow to steep for about an hour. This allows the fruit to absorb the liquids, and the juice to thicken.

Afterwards, mash a peach piece with a fork to make sure peaches are tender. If it mashes easily, its done. Partially mash the fruit with a potato masher enough to break up some of the fruit, leave some unmashed chunks. If you want more of a puree, then mash it up completely.

If this has not thickened up the first time, bring to a simmer and cook until it has thickened, usually ten more minutes is way more than enough.

It should've turned to a deep, bright shade of orange. Once the filling has thickened, remove from heat, cover and allow to chill. Don't put hot filling on raw pastry dough, it needs to cool so it doesn't cook the dough.

I have tried to make this with store bought pie crust. It failed. What works for a sliced pie falls apart before becoming fully cooked with a fried hand pie. The store bought crust was far too fragile. Baking them instead didn't work much better. The recipe below is a workable hand pie crust.

Dough Ingredients:

2+ cups All Purpose Flour

1 tsp Kosher Salt

1/3 to 1/2 cup Shortening or Lard

1/3 to 3/4 cups water or ice water

It may need more water than what's listed, as low humidity days, the flour will soak up more liquids. On humid days it doesn't need as much liquid.

Mix the dry ingredients together. Add the shortening and work it into the flour with a pastry blender or fork until it's like coarse cornmeal. Don't leave big chunks of shortening, make this similar to biscuit dough. Butter could be used, but lard or shortening works best.

I must say, shortening can leave an aftertaste in the crust, but lard has zero aftertaste. Lard also makes a very crispy crust.

Add water a teaspoon or two at a time. After each addition of water, fold the dough over, mashing in a little. Keep adding a teaspoon at a time, pressing, turning and working it until the dough holds itself together when formed into a ball.

Work it just until it holds together. Chill the dough in a covered container. The flour behaves better if it's had more time to absorb the liquids. I usually make the dough on day #1 along with the filling, chill both overnight, then make the pies on day #2.

Well flour the rolling pin, and work surface. Have a lightly floured pan ready to place the pie dough rounds on once they're cut. I use a large piece of parchment paper as my work surface because clean up goes easier; just fold it up and into the trashcan.

Roll the dough patty out to a thickness of about 1/8th inch thick, not any thinner. Lightly flour the dough as you roll it.

Once it's about 1/8th inch thick, use a sharp edged container or pot lid to cut out rounds, (I used a 5" Tupperware container, or the metal lid to one of my pots as it has a deep lip, and cuts perfect dough rounds).

Once all the pie dough rounds have been cut, use water to wet the outside edges of the round. In the center put 1 tablespoon of filling, (don't overfill), and fold the round over the filling to form a half circle. Try not to have air trapped in the pie, squeeze the edges together gently with your fingers, then use the tines of a fork to crimp the edges together to seal well.

Heat a little less than 1/2 inch of corn oil in a large skillet on medium heat. The oil is hot enough when a a pinch of ground black pepper sizzles when it hits the hot oil. (Also, these can be sprayed with butter flavored cooking spray, and baked at 350°f until golden, about 15 minutes).

Gently lay two pies in the hot oil, not touching. I turn them only one time. They're cooked about 5 or so minutes per side, depending on size. Fry flat in a skillet, not deep-fried.

Smaller pies are easier to handle, and cook quickly. Big hand pies are a headache to cook. They can easily break in two when turning, or slop out hot oil. Smaller pies are much easier to deal with.

When golden, place on a paper towel lined pan to drain. Leave as they are, or dust with powdered sugar. Or, allow them to cool, and drizzle on a doughnut glaze.

Any type of dried fruit can be made into filling for fried pies. Even a thick, precooked pecan pie filling works extra well as a fried hand pie.