Amaranth Pie Crust - Gluten Free

I have wanted to try making homemade gluten-free fruit pastries like Pop Tarts for a long time. The real thing has too many ingredients that I prefer my children not eat. Plus, my son loves Pop Tarts, so I need to come up with a healthy alternative.

I chose as my basic crust recipe the gluten free Amaranth Pie Crust Dough at Bob's Red Mill, which I altered slightly. This is what I did:

Recipe

3/4 cup Amaranth Flour
1/2 cup Tapioca
1/4 cup Almond Meal
1/4 tsp Celtic Sea Salt
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
3 Tb Coconut Oil
3 - 4 Tb Water (I ended up needing 6 Tb)
2 tsp Agave Syrup

I mixed it up with my Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer. Then rolled the dough out between two sheets of parchment paper. I used my biscuit cutter to make the shapes. Since they were small, I used the following items as fillings: mixed berry jam, strawberry jam, pumpkin butter, lemon curd, orange marmalade and apple sauce.

My Mom always used make little cookies out of the left over pie crust. She'd place them on a cookie sheet and sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on them. They were always my favorite part of any pie baking. So I did the same with the Amaranth Pie Crust. They turned out great. There weren't any left for taste testing though.....the cook turned into a little piggy.

The final fruit pastry turned out beautifully. Now, to try them on the kids.... My son said, "Ick, ick and double ick." My daughter thought the ones filled with the mixed berry jam were the best and orange marmalade was totally disgusting. I thought the ones with pumpkin butter and lemon curd stood up best to the taste of the dough.

The amaranth flour had a raw grassy smell in the package and tasted if possible even grassier in the uncooked dough. The cooked version was milder, but still might have too strong a taste for some. The cinnamon and sugar pie crust cookies were the best tasting of all.