This was my first time making a legit pastry, and let me tell you.... it was exciting and mildly stressful.
After the folding and flattening and folding and flattening of the pastry dough it was time to watch the dough bake. If you've ever done this before you may be able to relate.
Phase one: Watching these carefully crafted pockets of apple filled butter and flour, I was fully expecting them to just melt into a messy cookie sheet of blah! However, to my surprise, they didn't! The dough started to develop little droplets of buttery goodness on the outside and then moved on to phase two...
Phase two: Puffing and puffing and puffing up until you think they are going to 'splode!!! The layers of pastry start to show and it's incredible how many layers their are. It was at this point that I was hoping my 'forking' technique, as in fusing the dough together, was adequate. Luckily I only had one little fella split a bit of their side.
Phase three: After the anxiety of the potentially having little buttery apple exploding bombs in my kitchen, the storm passed and the turnovers* brown up all nice and crisply!
*There is no actual 'turning over' of these pastries when you make them. It is simply the folding in half of a square...
How to do...
Flaky Apple Turnovers
(the dough)
3 c flour
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 c butter, cold and cut into 1/4" cubes (
Yay! None of this 'room temp' business with the butter)
1/2 c + 1 tbsp ice watter
2 tsp lemon juice
1. Add flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor
(The food processor lives on!!)
2. Add 1/4 of the cubed butter and pulse until butter is dime sized (~4 one second pulses)
3. Add the remaining butter and process to coat the cubes with flour (~2 one second pulses)
4. Put mixture into a mixing bowl
5. Combine ice water and lemon juice
6. Add 1/2 of the liquid to flour mixture and toss to combine
7. Keep adding the liquid, 1 tbsp at a time until the dough clumps in your hand
8. Turn the dough onto a surface (it will be dry and shaggy and
you will be questioning what you've gotten yourself into)
9. Fraisage the dough
(google it) until it's 'moundable' and well incorporated
10. Press the dough into an 8" by 4" rectangle, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 1 hour
*I have learned that I take the 'easy start tab' on my saran box fully for granted and now is the time to thank the wonderful people at saran for their innovative and time saving 'easy start tab'.
(the rolling)
1. Place the dough onto lightly floured parchment paper and roll into 15" by 10" rectangle
2. Fold the dough lengthwise into thirds
3. From the narrow end of the dough, roll the dough into a coil
4. Press it down to form a 6" by 5" rectangle
5. Repeat the rolling and pressing process once more
6. Wrap the dough in plastic and chill for 1 hour
~chilling~
7. Roll the dough into a 15" by 20" rectangle until it's about 1/8" thick
8. Cut the dough into 12, five inch squares and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment. Chill while you make the filling
*I am becoming much closer friends with parchment paper. No burning, no clean up. Awesome!
(the filling)
1 1/2 c sugar
4 large eapples
3 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt
1. Peel and grate apples with a food processor. Combine apples, salt, sugar, and lemon juice in a medium bowl
2. Place 2 tbsp of apple filling (squeezed of excess liquid) onto the dough.
This part sucks. To squeeze the filling of the liquid I put it in paper towel and gently let the excess sticky and sugary liquid drip into a bowl). A thorough hand washing is required after this process.
3. Moisten the edges with the excess liquid and close the squares to make triangles! Crimp the edges with fork... aka forking.
4. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes or up to 24 hours in the fridge
5. Combine 1/2 c of sugar with 2 tsp of cinnamon to sprinkle on 'turnovers' that are lightly misted (so the sugar sticks)
6. Bake @ 375F for 30-35 minutes. Place on a wire rack to cool.
