These Buffalo Chicken Blue Cheese Hand Pies have all the flavor of buffalo chicken wings and blue cheese stuffed inside a buttery pastry baked to flakey perfection.
Mmmm flakey perfection.
Get it girl.
Or should I say boy? Because that’s what we are celebrating here! David from Spiced is having a little baby boy, and these hand pies are my contribution to his MANLY baby shower.
David and I go way back. I love me some Spiced.
He is my go-to resource for “man-food”. He tosses around buffalo sauce, bacon and all things grilled like it ain’t no thang.
But it also always has a refined twist. It’s not just grilled meat on a plate caveman style. No, no. Everything he makes is beautiful and, yet, appeals to the tastebuds of those with a y-chromosome. {If it's been awhile since High School biology, that is nerd speak for "men" 😉 }
All I can say is that this baby is one lucky taste-tester!
Tasked with creating man-food that was David-worthy, I had a momentary freakout and then remembered buffalo wings. Is there anything more manly than buffalo chicken wings? Psh. No.
Fine motorcycles, but those aren't edible.
So I wrapped up all that manly flavor in a beautifully flaky, all-butter pâte brisée, which is fancy French for “pie crust”. {Not literally, but we can talk more about that some other time…today is about David…and mini David.}
The buffalo sauce permeates the pastry making the whole pie one cohesive flavor. Dipped in some cooling blue cheese dressing it is divine!
These little pies are crowd pleasers. Their charm should not be limited to just football parties, tailgates and manly baby showers -- These are take-anywhere-and-collect-the-accolades pies.
They are also incredibly easy to pull together. {Shhhh}
I used a store-bought rotisserie chicken (I know shame on me...but I'm busy, okay?), so the filling was ready in under 3 minutes. The most "time consuming" part is waiting for your pastry to chill, which just means more time to curl up with your favorite book...or binge watch Orange is the New Black. Your call. #nojudgement
I cut the circles using a 4 inch ring cutter but you could use a 2.5 – 3 inch one to make cute, little, one-bite hand pies. How adorable would that be?!
Serve with blue cheese or ranch dressing and celery slices for the full chicken wing experience!
Now for a quick little pastry lesson – because I just cannot resist a teachable moment at my expense.
Observe:
This is the same pastry dough. I made both hand pies with the same technique and love. Yet, the one on the right is so flakey and puffy it almost looks like puff pastry. The difference is refrigeration. The pies on the right chilled overnight and the ones on the left only 1 hour. You want that butter to completely re-solidify, so that when it is popped in the screaming hot oven, the water in the butter evaporates to create steam that expands and puffs your pastry. There is other stuff going on here but suffice it to say “Chill that pastry!”
Be sure to check out all the other phenomenal bloggers who are contributing to David's baby shower! You won't want to miss a single recipe! Huge props to Chris from Shared Appetite for putting this fabulous shower together!
Buffalo Chicken Blue Cheese Hand Pies
Ingredients
For the Filling:
- ½ cup Frank’s Red Hot sauce
- ¼ cup butter (melted)
- ¼ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- Freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
- 2 chicken breasts (cooked, shredded (or roast chicken))
- ¼ cup blue cheese crumbles
Egg Wash:
- 2 eggs
- 1 tablespoon heavy cream
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 double crust recipe for pâte brisée
- Blue Cheese or Ranch Salad Dressing
- Celery (sliced thinly)
Instructions
To Make Egg Wash:
- Place all ingredients in a small bowl. You can whisk with a whisk or a fork until homogenous, but I like to use an immersion hand blender because it is faster and produces a smooth mixture that you just can’t get by hand.
To Make Hand Pies:
- Roll out pastry to ⅛ inch thick. Cut rounds with a 4-inch round cutter (Photo 1) and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.
- While your pastry chills, whisk together hot sauce, butter, Worcestershire sauce and black pepper in a large bowl. Add chicken to bowl and toss to coat.
- Remove your rounds from the refrigerator and place about a heaping tablespoon of chicken filling in the center of each round; sprinkle with blue cheese crumbles (Photo 2). Brush a little egg wash onto the outer edge of half of the pastry circle. Add just enough to dampen; you don’t want it dripping down the sides or pooling on the pastry (Photo 3).
- Gently fold the pastry circle in half. I like to corral the filling with my thumbs while lifting the pastry over the chicken. This ensures that the filling stays inside where it belongs. Press down the edges to seal. You can also crimp the edges or press with the tines of a fork. Brush a light coating of egg wash over the top of the hand pie. Refrigerate at least 1 hour or overnight.
- Pre-heat oven to 425°
- Cut several vents on the top of the cold pastry with a pairing knife. Bake in pre-heated oven for 20-25 minutes. If you chilled your pastry overnight, it might need an additional 5 minutes. The crust should be golden brown and the edges should be puffed with no visible unbaked dough.
- Serve warm.
Notes
You can re-roll your pastry scraps once and still achieve a flakey crust. Gather all your scraps into a ball and press them together – they don’t need to be one cohesive mass – when you roll them out, the layers of scraps will come together into one piece. This also helps keep it flakey. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill 2 hours or overnight. Proceed with the recipe above. Blue Cheese Salad Dressing – Store bought makes me sad, but in a pinch you can doctor it to make it better. In a bowl mix 8oz of dressing with 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, 2 teaspoons red or white wine vinegar, several dashes of hot sauce, ¼ cup blue cheese and black pepper to taste. Mix it up with an immersion hand blender, blender or Nutribullet. See, life is better already. Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container and re-heat in the oven.
A post for the pâte brisée found in this recipe is in the works...it's taking a little longer than usual because there are videos. That's right...VIDEOS!!!! I can hardly wait to share it! Until then, this recipe will work beautifully.
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I agree, you are super talented! 🙂 Way to go!! These filled special hand pies look amazing & must taste so wonderful too!
Woehoe!!!
This is totally my kinda dude food! No sharing with my ravenous brothers---I would eat every one of these stinkin' cute hand pies in seconds! Love all that buffalo + blue cheese goodness!
These are such a great idea!! All that in a warm buttery crust!
I had a salad and soup for dinner which makes me sad because I would rather have these buffalo chicken hand pies! LOL! I love spicy foods and I'm a huge blue cheese fan so I would eat myself sick with these! You knocked it out of the park with this recipe Lindsey!
I just ate dinner but you are making me hungry again, Lindsey! These are the cutest hand pies, because I love anything in mini-ish form! Love the buffalo chicken flavor, too!
This look sooo good!! And so flaky! I wish this was a real baby shower so I could try these 🙂
Oh my goodness, you totally rocked these pies for David! Love the buffalo chicken blue cheese filling! And you are completely allowed to use rotisserie chicken especially since you made your own pie crust! These look perfect! 🙂
these looks amazing, the first look they seems as cake or something sweet
Get it girl is right! WOW you can see the flackyness through the pictures!!
Yes, yes and more yes! These pies are totally rank up there at the top of the Dude Food list. What a creative idea! I'm totally craving buffalo chicken like you wouldn't believe right now, and your pate brisee skills are worth writing home abaout. But apparently we need to get you a blast freezer so you can make these hand pies at a moment's notice. Just kidding! Seriously, though, thank you so much for this...you have totally made my week! 🙂 (FYI...curling started up again. When are you coming up to curl??)
At the TOP of the Dude Food List!!! I'm honored! But I needed to pull out all the stops for you, David!! I will absolutely 100% make these for you the next time I see you, and since you are one of my favorite dude-bloggers, I'll bring extra for your freezer. Before I commit to embarrassing myself on ice, I have a few questions... Is there fall foliage? Can we have beers afterwards so I can forget everything that happened? And can we ban cameras? These kind of things don't need to be documented! lol
I answer thee these questions three: (1) Yup...if you hurry! (2) Uh, yes. The curling club has 4 taps and tons of bottles. In fact, I think curling is just an excuse to get together and drink! (3) I'm with ya. No cameras allowed. See you for tomorrow night's game?
It's a done deal! With a little heads-up I can request off work - unless it's on a Sunday, in which case, I'm there! You had me at fall -foliage! (or was it beer?)
Wow! I certainly appreciate that pastry lesson! You've done a beautiful job demonstrating why refrigeration is so important! These look delectable! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Annie!
These look unreal! The pastry on your pies look fabulous and these are the perfect combo of refined and dude food 🙂
Thanks, Medha! I like that - refined dude food! lol
These hand pies are perfect, girl! Rotisserie chicken is a brilliant move - it give you more time to chill your dough and watch Orange is the New Black! Thanks for the pastry science lesson too! 🙂
Haha thanks, rachelle! I am probably waaaay too big of a fan of rotisserie chicken. But who doesn't need more time to relax with Netflix?
First off - this has gotta be THE BEST use of store bought rotisserie chicken I've seen this morning! What a BRILLIANT idea these little pies are - and (dare I say it) - they are so adorable!
And second - CANNOT WAIT to see your pastry-making video! Cannot. Wait!
Lol just this morning, Shashi?! I'll have to try harder next time! Haha! I cannot wait to figure out how to edit that darn video!
How gorgeous are these? You are super talented! These look like the perfect appetiser or snack a for man or woman I say. Amazing as always!
Aww thanks, Jess! The female pastry chef at the restaurant I worked took high offense to the classification "man food" because she ate most of them! lol