For apple turnovers I made an inverted puff pastry. The amount in the recipe will actually make twice as much dough as needed for 8 turnovers, so I will freeze half of the dough to use in another recipe in a couple of weeks.
To make inverted puff pastry you need to make a thick roux with some butter and flour, and then separately make the dough. It is a bit of an involved process but it does make a very flaky pastry, and as I said earlier, half the eventual dough can be frozen for another recipe.
As for the filling I decided upon a puree, simmered until most of the liquid has evaporated. That was made with a sweet apple to be added to some chunky slightly stewed apples of a more tart variety, which had been sautéed with a little butter and sugar.
As they bake you get that lovely sweet, buttery aroma filling the kitchen and you can hardly wait to take them out of the oven and start to eat. But patience is rewarded with a lovely flaky turnover, with a wonderful apple filling, neither sweet nor too tart. For a confection with so little sugar these are just wonderful.
As ever I messed up on the video again, this time it was forgetting to turn on the sound when I first rolled out the pastry. But I did notice and was able to show the final rolling of some of the turnovers, so you will get to see how it is all done, except rolling out into a square.
Apple Turnovers – Video
Ingredients:
For the roux:
- 400g softened unsalted butter
- 175g plain flour
For the dough:
- 150ml water
- 5ml white vinegar
- 15g salt
- 113g melted butter cooled
- 175g plain flour
- 175g strong white bread flour
For Apple Compote:
- 450g sweet apples
- 5ml vanilla extract
- 60ml water
For apple chunks:
- 350g tart apples such as Granny Smith
- 15g unsalted butter
- 60g granulated sugar, or brown sugar
Method:
- Place the 400g of butter and 175g of plain flour into the bowl of a stand mixer and mix until well combined(you could do this by hand).
- Place the mixture between two sheets of parchment paper and form it into a large rectangle. Then refrigerate until firm.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer place the vinegar, salt, water, melted butter and both types of flour.
- Mix until just combined.
- Remove from the bowl and place into a large zip type plastic bag( or use cling flim) and form into a rectangle.
- Refrigerate until the dough has gone hard.
- Flour your work surface and remove both the butter and the dough from the refrigerator.
- Roll the dough out, and the roll the butter mixture(leaving it between the parchment paper) too, until both are the same size and rectangular in shape.
- Remove the butter from the parchment paper and place on a floured surface.
- Place the dough onto the butter and roll out to about 50cm in length, you will now have a rectangle.
- Fold one third of the rolled out shape onto the other two thirds.
- This will leave one third exposed, fold this onto the two thirds that have been already folded. This is called a single book turn.
- Wrap in cling film and chill for one hour.
- Flour the work surface again and remove the chilled dough from the fridge.
- With a short side facing you roll out the dough again, this time to about 70 cm.
- Now fold the dough in four, for a double turn. To do this fold you will, in effect fold half the dough over the other half. But fold12cm up onto itself, and the fold 23cm up until it joins with the 12cm.
- Then fold that 35cm block in half. That is the double turn achieved.
- Chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour.
- Repeat the process for one single turn, chilling for an hour.
- Repeat the process for one double turn and chill for an hour, or overnight.
- For the compote of apples take the sweet apples and cut into quarters, leaving the skins on but removing the cores.
- Add the apples to a saucepan, with the water and vanilla extract, and microwave, covered, for ten minutes.
- Allow to cool some and then blend until nice and smooth.
- Place in a saucepan and cook for 10 minutes over a medium heat to reduce the amount of liquid.
- Dice the sharp apples into small cubes, again leaving the skins on.
- Sauté in a pan with the butter and sugar, on a high heat for 10 minutes.
- Drain the sautéed diced apples.
- Allow both apples to cool, uncovered.
- Mix the diced apples into the apple compote.
- Remove the dough from the fridge and cut in half. Place one half in the freezer to use on another recipe.
- Roll the remaining dough into a 35cm square(about 14 inches), on a floured surface.
- From the dough cut 8 12cm(4.5 inch) circles and chill for 15 minutes.
- Take each round of pastry and place a rolling pin in the centre, rolling from 12 to 6 o’clock, but only in the centre, so that it forms an oval shape which is thicker at each end.
- Place a scoop of the cooled apple mixture onto the rolled part of the pastry.
- Lightly brush water on the exposed ends and the sides and fold one end up over the apple and press it down to attach to the other end.
- Use your fingers to seal all the edges.
- Place the turnovers onto a baking tray and apply an egg wash, twice.
- Score a pattern of choice, such as a leaf, on the top side of the pastry and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 230C/210C fan/450F
- Make a hole in centre of each turnover, to allow steam to escape during baking.
- Bake for 5 minutes reduce heat to 180C/160C fan/350F for 30 minutes.