Add a pinch of salt and the sugar, nutmeg & cardamom

Put this mixture in a food processor with the steel S blade and blend

Add your frozen or partially frozen olive oil to this and pulse a few times until it forms a crumble that resembles coarse crumbs

Add your cold milk and vanilla and pulse until the dough begins to clump together

Take out of the food processor and gather the dough into a ball and flatten that into a disk shape

Wrap that in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour

**Dough can be made a couple days ahead and kept in the refrigerator - allow it to soften slightly before rolling out**

While your dough is in the refrigerator, prepare your date filling

In a pot, combine your dates, sugar and water and heat slowly, stirring constantly

When it gets thick, take it off the heat and let cool

After 1 hour, remove the plastic wrap from your refrigerated dough and put it between 2 pieces of parchment paper

Roll out into a 12" - 14" round about 1/8" thick and remove upper parchment piece

With a 3 1/2" circle cookie cutter, cut out 12 round pieces of dough and put on a parchment lined baking sheet and put in the refrigerator to chill for about 15 minutes

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F

Remove dough circles from the fridge

Put 1 Tablespoon of the date filling in the center of one of the dough circles and then put another dough circle on top and crimp the edges with a fork around the entire edge of the circle to seal

Brush the top of the hand pie with some milk (I used almond milk)

Cut 2 small slits in the top crust

Lightly sprinkle the top with sugar

Repeat for each hand pie

Place the hand pies on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes at 375 degrees F

When done, let cool a little, but not completely, because they are very good when still warm

If allowed to cool completely, they can be eaten cold or reheated in a 350 degree F oven for 5 minutes

Store in a airtight container