Homemade Apple Turnovers
If you're looking for a quick and easy dessert or breakfast treat, you'll love these apple turnovers. Made with store-bought puff pastry sheets and a homemade apple filling, these pastries are light, flaky, and incredibly tasty.
Ingredients
- 4 medium apples (600-750 g) (Granny Smith, Pink Lady, Jazz or Braeburn)
- 30 g unsalted butter 1/4 stick
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice freshly squeezed
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 Tbsp cornstarch dissolve in 4 tbsp of water
- 500 g puff pastry store-bought
- 1 Tbsp granulated sugar for sprinkling the turnovers before baking, optional
- 1 egg
Instructions
Apple pie filling:
- Peel, core and dice apples into ½-inch (1-1.5cm) pieces
- In a large skillet over medium-high heat, melt the butter.
- Add the diced apples, sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon and salt, and stir to combine.
- Cook for 5-6 minutes over medium-high heat with occasional stirring, until the apples are softened and the juices have thickened into a thick, syrupy consistency.
- Mix cornstarch with 1/4 cup of water and our into the skillet with apples, stir until the juice boils and thickens, about 1 minute. Add more water (2 tbsp) if needed.
- Allow the apple pie filling to cool to room temperature. Keep in the fridge until needed
Assembling the apple turnovers:
- Pre-heat the oven to 400F (200C) and line a baking sheet with parchment/baking paper.
- When the apples are chilled, roll each thawed puff pastry sheet out on a lightly floured surface into a large 14×15-inch (36x39cm) rectangle. The pastry should be about 2-3mm thin.
- Divide the pastry into 18 (7x10cm) rectangles.
- Divide the chilled apple pie filling evenly between the 18 pastry rectangles (about 2-3 tablespoons of filling per each turnover). Fold one point of the puff pastry over the filling to the opposite point, creating a rectangles.
- Crimp and seal in the filling by pressing the lines of a fork along both straight edges. Brush the top with more egg wash and cut a few small slits in the top.
- Brush the turnovers with egg wash, cut small slits in the top of each turnover, and sprinkle with some granulated sugar.
Baking the turnovers:
- Bake at 400ºF (200ºC) for 20-30 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown, puffed up and crisp.
- Transfer the baked apple turnovers from the baking sheet onto a wire rack to cool. You can serve them either warm or at room temperature.
Notes
- It’s important to use a large skillet with a large surface area instead of a pot or saucepan, because the larger surface area speeds up the moisture evaporation. This ensures that a lot of the moisture released by the apples will have evaporated by the time the apples have softened, so that the final filling won’t be too wet (which could otherwise lead to leakage during baking).
- You want the apples softened but they should still have some texture to them. It’s better to err on the firm side with the apple pieces, as they will soften even further during baking.
- Chilling the filling firms up the butter and therefore thickens the syrupy juices even further, which helps when it comes to assembling the turnovers.
- Make sure to seal the turnovers tightly, so the apple filling does not spill out.
- Don’t skip cutting a few slits on the puff pastry for ventilation so the steam can come out, and you can avoid the turnovers bursting in the oven.
- If your thawed puff pastry is too difficult to work with, you can place it back into the fridge to help it firm up a bit.
- Avoid overworking the puff pastry, as you’ll lose some flakiness when baked.