High altitudes make cookies spread in the pan, cakes fall, and few baked goods turn out as they do at sea level. This twice-monthly column presents recipes and tips that make baking in the mountains successful. 

Here’s a delightful mini-pie starring blueberry preserves accented by sweetened cream cheese and tucked into a tender, buttery crust. Serve them warm at breakfast or nibble them like a cookie any time of the day. Feel free to substitute your favorite pie dough for the one in the recipe, and your favorite thick fruit preserves for the blueberries. Flavor the cream cheese with lemon curd if you want a more complex taste. 

Blueberry cream cheese hand pies

Yields 6 three-inch pies. Works at any elevation

Crust

• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unbleached, all-purpose flour, (spoon and level)
• 1 tablespoon superfine granulated sugar, preferably Baker’s
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons (one stick) unsalted butter, cut into quarter-inch slices and very cold
• 3 ounces full-fat cream cheese, cold and cut into small cubes
• 1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract

Or your favorite pie crust recipe

Cream cheese filling

• 1 1/2 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1 1/2 tablespoons superfine granulated sugar
• 2-3 teaspoons lemon curd, commercial or homemade, optional 

Blueberry filling

• 6 generous teaspoons high-quality thick blueberry preserves

Sealer/Glaze

• 1 egg

Coarse granulated sugar, optional

Make the crust: Place the flour, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse several times to combine. Scatter half of the butter pieces over the mixture and pulse until the consistency is like a coarse meal. Add the cold cream cheese, the vanilla, and the rest of the butter and pulse until large, moist curds form, small lumps of butter should still be visible, they contribute to the tender texture. Dump the dough out on a piece of waxed paper, gently knead and form it into a rectangle about 3/4-inch thick. If it’s too soft to roll easily, refrigerate it until it firms up. Store in the refrigerator, well covered, for a day or freeze for longer storage. 

Cut the dough: Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Remove the dough from the refrigerator. If necessary, let it rest until it’s rollable. Roll to a 1/8-inch thickness between two sheets of waxed or parchment paper, lifting the dough off the sheets occasionally as you roll. Cut it into 3-inch circles and place them on the lined cookie sheet. If the dough gets soft and difficult to work with, return it to the freezer. Gather, chill, and reroll the dough scraps to get 14 circles. If using a mini cookie cutter to create a central vent in the top of each pie (like the heart in the photograph), create cut-outs on half of the dough circles. If the dough is soft, place the cookie sheet, with the circles on it, in the refrigerator or freezer to firm up. 

Make the fillings: Whisk/stir the cream cheese until smooth. Slowly add the sugar until well combined. Add the lemon curd, if using. Set this aside. Stir the blueberry preserves to loosen them.

Prepare for baking: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees, with a rack in the center position 

Form the pies: Space 7 of the dough circles (those without a central vent) at least one inch apart on the parchment-lined pan. Beat the egg to blend the yolk and white and brush it in a 1/2-inch stripe on their outside edges. Spoon a generous teaspoon of the cream cheese filling in the middle of each dough circle, spread it to the edge of, but not on, the egg stripe, and top it with a generous teaspoon of blueberry filling. Center the remaining 7 dough circles on top of the filled ones and use the tines of a fork to press the two edges together so they’re sealed. If you didn’t make a central vent with a mini cookie cutter, use a sharp knife to cut two vents in the top of each pie. Brush a thin coating of the beaten egg on each pie and sprinkle the tops with coarse sugar, if using. Place the cookie sheet, with the pies on it, in the freezer or refrigerator until the dough is quite firm. 

Bake: Put the pan in the oven and bake until the pies are light golden brown, about 18-24 minutes, depending on their temperature when placed in the oven.

Cool, store, and serve: Remove the pies to a rack to cool completely. They can be stored, covered, at cool room temperature for a day, refrigerated for 2 days, or frozen for a month. If serving them warm, reheat them in a 325-degree oven. 

Vera Dawson’s column “High Country Baking” publishes biweekly in the Summit Daily News. Dawson is a high-elevation baking instructor and author of three high-altitude cookbooks. Her recipes have been tested in her kitchen in Frisco, where she’s lived since 1991, and altered until they work at elevation. Contact her at veradawson1@gmail.com.