Turnovers

Turnovers are incredibly easy to make - they only have three ingredients so how hard can it be, right?  It's mainly just a bit of assembly.  The hardest part is deciding where to categorize the recipe in my plethora of three ring recipe binders - are they a snack, sandwich, breakfast, or dessert?  The answer is "yes", which isn't particularly helpful when trying to figure out where the recipe is.  If I was insanely organized I would probably create an alphabetized index of my hundreds and hundreds of recipes so I could cross-reference by keyword, but that's too much even for me. 

I just noticed that I've done two posts in a row using puff pastry.  Well, at least they're dramatically different recipes and puff pastry is still a magic ingredient - really easy to use but it looks really complicated.  You can put literally any filling in a turnover - savory or sweet - to suite your tastes.  For this post I did half chocolate and half apple turnovers.  I'm thinking of trying cheese, arugula and prosciutto turnovers in the near future.  Any type of jam works exceptionally well also - I recently saw something about cream cheese and blackberry jam that sounded enticing for a turnover filling.  And how about lemon curd?  I love lemon. The only thing to watch is that the filling isn't extremely liquid or it will end up running out of the turnovers and all over your oven.

The other dimension you can vary is the size.  The chocolate turnovers were small using 4" squares of puff pastry.  The apple turnovers were more what you would call a "normal" turnover size using 6" squares of puff pastry.  It all depends on what you intend to use them for - the chocolate turnovers were treats for The Lawyer's office and the apple turnovers were breakfast.

 The other good news is that you can make these ahead and refrigerate or freeze them, then just throw them in the oven when you want them.  Yum!

* * click here for a printable recipe* *


Turnovers
makes 18 small or 8 large turnovers

1 (17-1/4 oz) package puff pastry sheets
1 egg, beaten
Filling: 4 oz finely chopped semisweet chocolate, or 18 teaspoons of jam or lemon curd, or apple filling (below)



Adjust oven racks to the upper and lower middle positions and heat the oven to 425 degrees.

Working with one sheet at a time on a lightly floured work surface, roll the puff pastry sheet lightly and trim to a 12” square. Cut evenly into nine 4” squares or four 6” squares, depending on your preference.  Working with one square of dough at a time, place a portion of filling (chocolate or 1 teaspoon of jam or lemon curd) on the lower corner, brush two edges of the dough with beaten egg, and fold the dough in half diagonally to form a turnover. 

Place each turnover on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Place in the freezer for 20 minutes to harden, then brush the dough tops with the egg wash and pierce the top of each with a small knife.

Bake until golden brown, switching and rotating cookie sheets halfway through baking to ensure even browning, about 15 minutes. Cool the turnovers on a wire cooling rack. May serve warm or cold.


Apple filling:
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1 tablespoon butter
½ cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1-1/2 teaspoons cornstarch

Melt the butter in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the apples and stir for about 2 minutes. Add the brown sugar and cinnamon and cook, stirring, for 2 more minutes. Stir together the cornstarch and ½ tablespoon water. Pour into the skillet, mix well, and cook for 1 more minute until thickened. Remove from the heat to cool. When adding to the pastry sheets, drain the apples slightly so the turnovers won’t have too much liquid.