Excuse me if I toot my own horn a little bit here, because I am pretty excited about this one. After much experimenting, I have managed to create a low carb, gluten-free pastry crust that holds together and yet still manages to be tender and flaky. With no eggs. Not one single egg, not even half an egg. Not even a few drops of egg white. While I have nothing against eggs in general, this is actually a huge breakthrough for me. If you have ever worked with low carb, gluten-free ingredients, I think you will agree that this is no mean feat. Because when it comes to pastry crust, the lack of gluten presents an enormous challenge. Gluten may not be good for us, but it has some amazing properties that are really hard to simulate in its absence. It provides the glue that holds conventional pastry crust together while still allowing it to be tender. My beloved almond flour isn’t nearly so cooperative in that regard. It doesn’t have all these magical little protein strands that bind to each other while the butter melts, so most almond flour pastry recipes call for eggs to hold the crust together. Until now…
Again, I have nothing against eggs in general. In fact, I love them and eat them almost daily in some form or another. But eggs don’t belong in a true pastry crust. Sorry, eggs, you are delicious, but you have a tendency to make the crust very heavy and decidedly un-flaky. Eggs or egg whites may help hold the crust together, but it will be much more leaden in texture. It definitely won’t have that melt-in-your-mouth tenderness.
In the absence of gluten and eggs, I knew I needed some help getting the almond flour to hold together. I would love to have an all almond flour crust, but I tried that a few times and the results weren’t pretty. So I went with a little teeny weeny bit of starch, in the form of some gluten-free all purpose flour. I used as little as I could get away with, so as not to raise the carb count too much.
I was very pleased with the results. The dough is still quite fragile and has to be handled with care. But one great thing about the absence of gluten is that the dough patches back together really easily and can be re-rolled without the loss of too much tenderness. It worked so well for these hand pies, because the circles of pastry were small and easy to work with. I also made a few of them into tarts and was impressed with how well the dough baked up, without getting too soggy on the bottom. And I have also tried it out as one large pre-baked crust (for a coconut cream pie, and I will post that recipe in a few days). Because it’s so fragile, it’s tricky getting it into the pie pan without a lot of cracks and tears, but again, it patches back together so nicely.
I have a few ideas of how to strengthen it without losing the tenderness, so I think there may still be some tweaking to be done. And I haven’t yet tried it as a top crust for a large pie, so I can’t quite say how it will perform there. But for now, I am extremely pleased to have a delicious low carb almond flour pastry crust. I have so many recipe ideas for this crust, I hardly know where to begin!
Strawberry Hand Pies – Low Carb and Gluten-Free
Ingredients
Filling:
- 1 cup strawberries, finely chopped
- 2 tbsp Swerve Sweetener or granulated erythritol
Crust:
- 1 cup almond flour, Honeyville
- 1/4 cup Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour, I used Bob's Red Mill
- 2 tbsp Swerve Sweetener or granulated erythritol
- 1 tsp guar or xanthan gum
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup butter, well-chilled and cut into small chunks
- 2 - 4 tbsp ice water
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- For the filling, combine chopped berries and erythritol in a small bowl and let sit.
- For the crust, combine almond flour, all purpose, erythritol, guar gum and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse to combine.
- Sprinkle butter over and pulse until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
- With processor running on low, add ice water 1 tbsp at a time until dough begins to clump together.
- Cover work surface with a large sheet of parchment paper and sprinkle with almond flour. Turn out dough and form into a disk.
- Sprinkle with additional almond flour and top with another piece of parchment, then carefully roll out in all directions to form a 10 inch circle.
- Remove top parchment and use a large circular cookie cutter, about 2 3/4 inches in diameter, to cut out as many circles as possible. Gently lift circles with a knife or offset spatula and transfer to prepared baking sheet.
- Re-roll scraps to get as many pastry circles as possible. You should be able to get 9 or 10.
- Avoiding any juices collected at the bottom, spoon a small amount of berries onto one half of each circle, leaving 1/2 inch edge for sealing.
- Gently fold the other half of the pastry over and seal edges. Use a fork to crimp.
- Use a sharp knife to cut small slices into the top of each hand pie to release steam.
- Bake 16 to 18 minutes or until pastry is light golden brown. Let cool completely on pan before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional Disclaimer
Please note that I am not a medical or nutritional professional. I am simply recounting and sharing my own experiences on this blog. Nothing I express here should be taken as medical advice and you should consult with your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. I provide nutritional information for my recipes simply as a courtesy to my readers. It is calculated using MacGourmet software and I remove erythritol from the final carb count and net carb count, as it does not affect my own blood glucose levels. I do my best to be as accurate as possible but you should independently calculate nutritional information on your own before relying on them. I expressly disclaim any and all liability of any kind with respect to any act or omission wholly or in part in reliance on anything contained in this website.
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I tried this crust recipe, I forgot to add the xanthan but it held together nicely and was so light and flakey. I used it for a quiche, so I baked it for ten minutes before pouring my egg mixture in to bake for another 25 minutes. It is excellent. I look forward to making these pies next.
So glad you liked it!
Wow! So, I showed my almost 4 yr old my Pinterest board of low carb treats and asked her what she wanted to help me make today. She picked these since she saw strawberries in the puc and we had gone strawberry picking this weekend. I’ve made a handful of GF, LC treats since starting my new way of eating a month or so ago but yowzers, this was my first pastry crust type dessert. I do not have a food processor so I attempted to use my Vitamix and then my Kitchenaid mixer when I didn’t think the dough was quite right. It was fragile for sure. I lost a bit of dough between machines so I only made 6. They look horrible, lol! I am going to post them on my blog in a minute in case you want to see. But, yum! The flavor is good and the crust is very nice! Thank you!
Yikes! Oh well, as long as they taste good. Next time, just take two knifes or a pastry cutter and cut the butter up in the dough as finely as you can.
Could coconut flour be substituted for the GF flour?
Sort of. You need some starch too. I have a newer pastry crust that does a combo of coconut flour and arrowroot starch. https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/2014/01/apple-caramelized-onion-tartlets-low-carb-and-gluten-free.html
This recipe makes a wonderful crust with a nice texture–the only problem is how brown it gets in the oven! Any tips for avoiding this? I would love to try a double crust pie but I’m afraid the toasted flavor will be too overwhelming. Thanks!
Mine didn’t get that brown at all. Maybe try shortening your baking time by 3 or 4 minutes (your oven may run hot) and/or tenting with foil for the last little bit of baking.
Love ’em!
How many calories are in each small pie? Looks fabulous, but I always count my calories as well.
Mom used to make these. They were made with fresh pears, fried and dipped in sugar They were called pear tarts. An old Southern treat. Thanks for this.
protein strands… were you considering adding whey protein?
No, whey protein tends to make things cakey. But gluten is a protein so it creates strands that help bind pastry crust and make it less fragile.
Good to know- then I won’t tweak the dough when I make them 🙂 (I’m one of those people who has a hard time ever following a recipe as written…)
I’m planning on making them today, and serving them tomorrow? Are these as good the second day? (Assuming I don’t eat them all myself and have to make another batch for my guests tomorrow…)
I have a hard time following recipes exactly too…even my own! These are good the second day but I wouldn’t keep them around any longer than that.
Carolyn,
I was thinking that your crust recipe might work for toaster pastries. But one would have to use a thin layer of jam instead of fresh fruit…..a winter project possibly!
Anyway, thanks so much for this and all of your great recipes!
Wow. A hand pie for less than 5g of carb… that’s something to get excited about 🙂
I made these last night and was pretty pleased with the results. My husband ate one and said “You didn’t tell me you were making pop tarts! These are GOOD! Can I have a few more?” I guess I used a smaller circle cookie cutter because I got 15 mini pies out of the recipe. This one is definitely a keeper!!
Thanks for all your hard work to perfect this recipe! 🙂
Oh yay! Sometimes I don’t know if my recipes will work for other people, and especially something as tricky as pastry crust. I know how to work with my ingredients but it’s hard to relay all of the info, no matter how carefully I write up the recipe. So glad they turned out!
I finally found someone who has made these. These are incredibly “fragile”. I am an experienced cook and I had huge issues with making these.
Please do not use 2-3/4 inch circles the math is off, if you want to leave a 1/2 inch around to turn the finicky dough, you need at least 3-1/4 inch circles.
Also the filling should be really really small chopped up pieces of strawberry, because any pressure on the dough and it will puncture a hole.
Also please strain the fruit from the juices by positioning a strainer over a cup or bowl to get rid of the juices.
I have made pies for years with spinach fillings and leftover spaghetti meat sauce so I am used to playing with this size of dough…..and even they were finicky with high carb dough.
I made about 4 then switched to just making tartlets with the rest as the method was more friendly and less stressful whew!!!
The taste was very good, but too much dough for me in proportion to filling.
The texture of “pastry” was spot on!
Just wanted to provide some help to inexperienced cooks!
Like Joanne, I made 4 and gave up. But instead of folding the diminutive circle in half, I topped it with another circle. The dough is extremely difficult to work with so I kept putting it on the freezer for a few minutes and work a couple of rounds, back in the freezer, etc. The rest of the dough I made a 5 inch “pie” using half the dough for the bottom and the rest for the top. The taste and texture was perfect.
Note: my filling was Granny Smith chopped tiny, with Swerve, cinnamon and toasted pecans also chopped fine.
Carolyn,
Are these too fragile to be made into toaster pastries?
They look delish! Thanks!
Not sure. Do you mean you’d actually want to cook them in a stand up toaster? Then yes. But if you mean a toaster oven, they might do alright, but the strawberry juice would leak out a lot. Probably pretty messy.
Carolyn Are these really fragile? I have some in the oven. Here is a tip you may have already given it. Roll your dough between 2 peices of plastic wrap then take off the top , then flip the plastic wrap and dough into pie shell peel off plastic wrap and bake. I do this when I make the pockets pies also.
Pretty fragile, yes. I tried the flip thing for the big crust and it still tore a bit. I am working on perfecting that!
I wonder if silicone sheets might work for the rolling and flipping?
It might stick more than you want it to. Not really sure…
I use wax paper or parchment paper, which works really well, when I roll out pie crust. These look amazing!
These look fantastic Carolyn! I love hand pies, and strawberry is by far the best!! YUMMY!
Oh wow I must try this crust. It really looks like the real deal. Pinning to make in the future 🙂
Carolyn,
What has been your experience with psyllium powder? Such as this recipe
http://mariahealth.blogspot.com/2013/06/amazing-bread.html
Mary