Pastry School: Puff Pastry Fruit Turnovers

Baked and fried pastries are wonderful southern desserts and popular with southern food fans, and I'm no exception. Frozen puff pastry can turn almost anyone into a pastry chef! You can make this amazing creation from scratch, but trust me – it’s an incredible amount of work, and here in my pastry school, I like to do things the easy way as long as it doesn’t compromise the quality of the end results.

The puff pastry makes these turnovers super flaky. All those thin layers of pastry and shortening “puff up” in the oven, making a delicious and beautiful dessert or a decadent snack.

Another shortcut is to use canned pie filling. I’ve made my own from scratch many times, especially when we grew our own blueberries and pears, but the canned filling is almost as good, and it’s a lot less labor intensive.

I use cherry pie filling, but it can be easily substituted with any fruit filling, including blueberry, peach, strawberry, blackberry, or apple.

Holle’s cherry turnovers

What you’ll need:

One sheet frozen puff pastry

flour

Canned cherry pie filling

One egg

Directions: Thaw one sheet of puff pastry for about 30 minutes at room temperature.

Gently unfold the pastry onto a lightly floured surface. Roll gently into a 12 x 12-inch square. Cut the pastry into four equal squares. If you get small tears in the pastry, smooth them with a wet finger.

Place a heaping tablespoon of filling on one side of each pastry square, near the center. Don’t overfill. Spread the filling out a little, making sure that there’s about a one-inch border all the way around the filled side where there’s no fruit filling to interfere with closing the turnovers.

Fold the squares over and seal the edges with an egg wash made of one beaten egg and a teaspoon of water. Crimp edges with the tines of a fork.

Wrap the turnovers in cling wrap and place in the freezer for ten minutes to firm.

Make sure your oven has preheated to 400 degrees.

Place the turnovers on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Using the sharp point of a knife, cut three small vents into each crust and bake for 20 minutes. When turnovers have cooled slightly, drizzle with glaze.

Glaze: Blend together 1/3 cup powdered sugar and one tablespoon milk. Stir until smooth.

For more pastry school recipes, follow the links below!