It’s raspberry season: Make raspberry baby heart pies

I’m a big fan of the fruit seasons here in Maine, and I’ve written about this before. I love strawberries. I love raspberries. I love blueberries. And I’m pretty sure the berries are one of my favorite parts about the Maine summers.

We’re so fortunate in that we don’t have to buy or drive somewhere to go pick fresh raspberries because our neighbors grows the most amazing organic raspberries, and each year, she’s very generous. They’re also the best raspberries I’ve ever tasted.

I pride myself in making delicious homemade pies, and raspberry-peach is my favorite, but my youngest doesn’t like it. In fact, until this week, he said he didn’t like pie at all. I don’t even know how this is possible, but I decided to try something knew this year to see if I could win over my little boy to the side of pie.

So I invented (at least I think I invented these) raspberry baby heart pies, though I have to give name credit to my little boy, and they have been a huge success in our house. They’re so simple, yummy, and homemade that I just had to share.

It makes me happy to be able to make a yummy dessert that makes my family happy.

Ingredients:

Filling

1 and ½ cups fresh raspberries

3 Tablespoons sugar

Crust

See recipe here or you can use a store-bought pie crust

Icing (optional)

1 cup of powdered sugar

a dab of milk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Begin by washing your raspberries and adding the sugar to them in a small bowl. Mix gently to coat the raspberries in sugar and set aside.

image of raspberries in a bowl

Roll out your pie crust dough, and using a large heart-shaped cookie cutter (though you can just cut out squares or rectangles if you like), cut out 16 hearts (or as many as you can with the dough rolled thin).

image of rolled dough

On a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, lay out 8 of your hearts. Add a small amount of the raspberries (about 2 Tablespoons) to the very center of each heart.

raspberries and pie dough

Cut a little X in the remaining 8 hearts and stretch the dough a bit to make them cover the raspberries. Using your fingers or a fork, squeeze together the 2 layers of dough to form a little pie.

mini pies uncooked

Place in the oven and cook for 15 to 20 minutes. Our oven took 18 minutes to get the pie crust golden brown. That’s what you want to aim for.

After the pies cool a little, you can mix the powdered sugar and milk to make an icing to drizzle on top of the baby heart pies. This is optional, but the sugar will help balance the tartness of the raspberries.

mini pie finished on plate

Share, eat, and enjoy!

Crystal Sands

About Crystal Sands

I am a former academic and award winning writing teacher turned hobby farmer/homeschooling mom/freelancer. In 2015, after too many years of working too many hours, I decided to change my life. This blog shares my stories related to making the change and simplifying my life–a process that began when we finally got our first chickens. In this blog, I will share my experiences learning how to hobby farm on a small place in Maine, become more self-sufficient, live frugally, live peacefully, and have more time for love. I hope you will join me on this journey by following my blog and following me on Twitter @CrystalDSands.