I recently spoke at one of my favorite conferences for food bloggers, Eat Write Retreat. The topic of my session, naturally, was food swapping. Zuzu helped me put together my first-ever Keynote presentation — that’s like Power Point for Macs — with a lot of photos and jazzy effects. Maybe a few too many jazzy effects, but that is the risk you take when you ask a 6th grader to format your presentation.

I spoke to the assembled bloggers about what food swapping is, how it works and the myriad ways in which participating in the food swap movement could enhance their culinary careers. And then, we had our own little food blogger food swap. Maybe the first-ever such event.

The Eat Write Retreat food swap was sponsored by Davidson’s Safest Choice Eggs — eggs being a common ingredient in many food swaps items, from baked goods to granola. The conference attendees could choose whether or not to participate and those that did received coupons for a free dozen eggs with which to make their swap items. The response was overwhelming, proving Eat Write Retreat co-founder Casey Benedict’s theory that food bloggers really just want to cook for one another.

At first, I was not planning to participate in the swap itself because I was concerned that I would be too busy helping the other participants, many of whom had never attended a food swap before. But in the days leading up to the conference I saw pictures on social media of all the delicious goodies that the other bloggers were making. I did not want to be left out of the action.

But what to make? I really wanted to swap some of my homemade jam because that is what I am known for. But many of the other bloggers were traveling to and from the conference by plane and could not bring home an eight-ounce jar of jam. Plus, what about the egg?

And then, I remembered the delicious jam-filled toaster pastries that my friend Gena brought to the last Chicago Food Swap. Bingo! Jam in a convenient travel package, one that happens to need an egg wash.

These were filled with a black raspberry jam.

What I ended up making were more jam-filled hand pies than toaster pastries. They are larger than toaster pastries, for one thing, and as a result, hold more jam. And since this project is really all about the jam….Well, you see my point.

The best part about these hand pies was just how much jam they used up. You see, the top shelf of my refrigerator is kind of like a jam ghetto. At any given moment, there could be five or six different half-empty (or is it half-full?) jars of homemade jam. By the time someone finishes one jar, I’m probably made one or two more. It is a bit absurd. But each of these hand pies holds about two ounces of jam. Eight hand pies times two ounces of jam equals, well, let’s just say that I was able to polish off two full jars of jam.

Chill formed hand pies prior to baking.

So if you need to make peace with your overzealous canning, or if you just like hand pies, give this recipe a try. The results are not only delicious but pretty darn cute. How adorable would these hand pies look at your next picnic or backyard barbecue? I guarantee that your friends and family would say “awww” before they devoured them.

Then again, if you want to call them “toaster pastries,” you can eat them for breakfast.