Individual serving hot water crust pies filled with sausage, gruyere cheese, and roasted butternut squash in a free standing flaky crust. These rustic British inspired pies have a delicious savory meat filling making them perfect for a weekend brunch or cozy dinner.
Savory Squash and Sausage Pies
These cozy homemade pies are filled with warm hearty flavors of butternut squash, basil, and spicy pork sausage and lots of gruyere cheese. The top of the crust is sprinkled with sesame seeds for a little extra crunch. These are hearty little meat pies and two people can easily split one for lunch. If it gets cold and you feel like some comfort food, I suggest making a batch for either breakfast, brunch, or dinner.
Hot Water Crust Pies
These deep dish pies have a thicker, sturdier hot water crust pastry for holding layers of heavy fillings made of vegetables and meat. These savory pies were traditionally used for creating hand raised pies, that don't require a dish or loaf pan. In this case, we are lining layering ramekin with hot water pastry dough and then removing them once baked. The goal is to have a free standing pie with a firm crust.
To make the hot water pastry crust you need hot water, a fat (butter, lard), and flour. Nothing to complicated, just a change in the elasticity and structure compared to cold shortcrust pastry. It is important to mold the dough while its still warm. To make this process a bit easier, I decided to make individual small pies using wither ceramic ramekins or these 4-inch deep cake pans with a removable bottom instead of one large pie. So, if this is all new to you, don't worry its much easier than you think.
🌿 Ingredients You'll Need
- Flour: All purpose flour has a lower protein percentage than bread flour, so instead of using just one, I mixed them together for a sturdy pastry. If you aren't able to use both, I suggest using just all purpose flour instead.
- Unsalted Butter: Butter is my fat of choice to make a butter tender crust.
- Butternut Squash: Roasted squash gives a sweet and nutty tastes that balances nicely with the spicy breakfast sausage.
- Spicy Breakfast Sausage: The meat filling I chose for this hot water crust pie is a spicy pork breakfast sausage. Filled with herbs and a little spicy heat, the sausage makes these pork pies taste like a breakfast casserole.
- Gruyere Cheese: Gruyere is a lovely melty cheese with a rich, creamy, salty, and nutty flavor.
- Fresh Basil: The addition of fresh herbs lightens the rich filling for a great flavor. I also love using fresh sage or a mixture of both.
- Sesame Seeds: Add a sprinkle of sesame seeds onto the egg wash for a little extra crunch to the hot water pie crust.
Tips for Hot Water Crust Pies
- I have not needed to grease my ramekins, but if you feel they will stick, just give a slight coating with lard, butter or oil. But, from my experience they are fine without it and slip out easily.
- Roll pastry dough between two layers of parchment paper with a rolling pin, to prevent sticking.
- Gently use your fingertips or the handle of a wooden spoon to press pastry into bottom and sides, making a smooth even layer. Release any air trapped between pastry and ramekin.
- Trim off over hanging pastry with scissors.
- If you need to 'paste' extra pastry in certain places its easy to press it together.
- Create a dome with the filling when packing it into the base of the pie. We want to over-fill our pies as the filling will shrink some when baked.
- Brush egg wash on the lip of the base before adding the top pastry lid, to help seal them together.
- Cut a 1 inch '+' in the center of the top of the pastry with a sharp knife before baking, to allow steam to release.
Storing Leftover Pies
Store pies in the fridge in an airtight container for 4-5 days. To warm, place pies on a baking sheet, then bake at 350F (180C) for about 10 minutes or until desired temperature.
Frequently Asked Questions
Pies are baked when they have turned golden brown and when you tap on the lid they sounds and feel firm.
Let pies cool for about 15 minutes before running a knife along the edge of where the ramekin and lid meet. Don't cut off the pie crust lid. Invert the ramekin and let the pie slip out.
You can use any cooked meat you prefer in this recipe. However, I find the flavors of breakfast sausage add more complexity to the pie. If you're not a fan of spicy sausage try plain or even sage sausage.
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Hot Water Crust Pies
Equipment
Ingredients
Hot Water Crust
- 1 ½ Cups (192 grams) all purpose flour
- 1 Cup (128 grams) bread flour
- 10.5 tablespoon (150 grams) unsalted butter
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ⅔ Cup (160 ml) water
Filling
- 2 medium sized butternut squashes, roasted, skin removed, chopped into small pieces
- fine sea salt, to season
- ground black pepper, to season
- 1 pound (453 grams) spicy pork sausage, ground breakfast sausage
- 1 Cup fresh basil, chopped
- 4 Cups (400 grams) gruyere cheese, grated, more if needed
Egg Wash
- 1 large egg, lightly beaten with a fork
Topping
- sesame seeds, for sprinkling
Instructions
Cook Fillings
- Roast Butternut Squash, by slicing squashes in half lengthwise. Scrape out seeds, lightly coat flesh with olive oil and place on baking sheet. Season lightly with salt and pepper.
- Bake at 400 F (200 C) for about 20 minutes until flesh is tender. Remove from oven.
- Let squash cool for about 15 minutes. Cut flesh away from skin and then cut into small cubes. Set aside.
- Meanwhile, in a medium skillet on medium-high heat, cook pork sausage until brown. Drain grease and set aside.
Hot Water Crust Pastry
- Place ramekin top side down on a piece of parchment paper, draw a circle around with a pen around the ramekin. Cut out the circle and save for later to measure pastry lid.
- Whisk together measured and sifted flour in a medium bowl.
- In a medium saucepan, bring butter and water to high heat and boil.
- Remove pan from heat, add flours and salt and stir with wooden spoon or rubber spatula until a dough forms. You may need to press dough against the sides to pack it together.
- Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead with hands until smooth and elastic (3-4 times). Dough will be HOT, so use plastic gloves or knead then release and continue.
- Weigh you dough ball and divide into four equal pieces.
- Place a piece of parchment paper down onto work surface.
- Take one dough ball and flatten into a oval with hands, then lay an additional piece of parchment paper on top.
- Roll dough between the two pieces of paper into a circle, with a rolling pin until it reaches 3mm in thickness or ⅛ inch.
- Remove circle of dough from paper and gently drop into a ramekin.
- Using finger gently press dough into bottom and then against the sides. Trim off overhang. And smooth the edges, forming a small lip around the top of the ramekin. Make sure there are no holes in the pastry. If so, its easy to take a scrap piece and patch by pressing together with fingers.
- Take trimmings and from back into ball set aside.
- Repeat this process with the remaining three ramekins.
Fill Pastry
- Layer the pastry molds, gently pressing each layer to pack and fill in any gaps.
- Start with a layer of gruyere, then chunks of butternut squash, basil, gruyere, sausage, gruyere, and another layer of butternut squash.
- Make sure the top layer of butternut squash is taller than the rim of the ramekin forming a dome. then sprinkle with extra gruyere cheese.
- Paint a think coating of egg wash on the lip of pastry that is exposed around the rim of the ramekin.
- Roll out one of the ball of trimmings between parchment paper into the size of the paper circle cut out from earlier.
- Place this pastry circle on top of your filling to create a lid and let the egg wash help seal it to the bottom pastry.
- Cut two slits in the top of the pastry lid. Brush with egg wash, and sprinkle a nice coating of sesame seeds.
Bake Savory Pies
- Preheat oven to 400 F (200 C) and bake pies for 10 minutes. Lower temperature to 375 F (190 C) and bake for an additional 40-50 minutes.
- Bake pies until crust is golden brown and firm. You will see steam coming from the slit in the pies.
- If you tap in the lid and it feel soft, not crispy firm, bake for an additional 10 minutes.
- Place ramekins on cooling rack for 15 minutes before removing pies from dishes.
- Take a sharp knife and go around edge of pastry where it connects to ramekin. Invert ramekin slightly to loosen pie, then slide pie out carefully.
- Top with sliced roasted tomato and fresh basil if desired.
- Serve pies warm.
Marija Chandler
Thank you! Sounds divine!
Julie G.
I made this on a whim and it was CRAZY DELICIOUS. Was worried that it would be a bit bland with no spices added (other than what was in the pork sausage) - nope, perfect. This one was a triumph for me, someone who leans much heavier toward baking than cooking. No issues with the hot water crust pastry, couldn't be easier. I will say that you could easily get away with one butternut squash and 1/2 the cheese and basil called for, I couldn't fit everything in and used the leftovers for a tasty casserole a couple days later. Thanks for posting! Everyone needs to make this!
Laura
Perfect so easy and tasty! I only used the pastry part of the recipe and it was perfect !