Apple Turnovers

For many years and my entire cooking journey, I have tried to make the perfect apple pie, from the filling to the pie crust, which I have experimented with countless times. After finally accomplishing the perfect pie, I began using my apple pie filling in numerous recipes. And so I present the best apple turnover recipe with my (almost) famous pie filling.

The filling has the perfect number of apples, a rich cinnamon flavor, a hint of orange zest, and extra sauce to make every bite as enticing as the last.

For the pastry, I used a traditional puff pastry recipe brought to you by Escoffier, a well-known chef in the late 1800s early 1900s who changed how every one of us eats… more on him in another post. You will genuinely be rolling out the history on your countertop with this puff pastry recipe over 100 years old.

Many of you may be wary of puff pastry; laminating pastry, which creates little air pockets of buttery goodness, can be a challenge sometimes, but don’t worry. My detailed recipe will dissolve any fears you might have.

So I mentioned lamination, but what is this? This method is used to make puff pastry and croissants, so think back to when you ate one. There are little pockets of air and buttery goodness throughout the pastry. But what creates this? Lamination is a method of folding a pastry batter and dough over itself many times with butter in between. You start with a dough sheet, place butter in the middle, fold the dough over the butter, roll it out, and fold it over itself—each time you do this, you create layers and layers of butter.

Fast forward to when you put your pastry in the oven; your oven will melt the butter and leave behind the little pockets of air where the butter used to be. This is what makes a pastry so flaky. This may sound like a tricky process, and others may complain about how it takes so long and doesn’t work. I want you to ignore those people and listen to and try my recipe. It’ll take roughly an hour and a half to make the pastry, but very little of this time is active time.

With that being said, I DO NOT recommend using store-bought puff pastry; it will simply not turn out as good. However, I will turn a blind eye to it just this once. It’ll work; it just won’t be nearly as good as from-scratch cooking.

So let’s dive right into this fantastic recipe that’ll be sure to impress your friends and family while making your house smell like a bakery.

Cheers,

Chef Olson

“The Flying Chef”

Puff pastry can be tricky, but having the best flour can help! We recommend this pastry flour from Bobs Red Mill.

Chef Notes

- is it essential to use pastry flour. I've used all-purpose flour for this recipe, but it isn't the same. I recommend buying Bob's Red Mill pastry flour for this recipe.

- The puff pastry dough must remain cold if you want to get flaky layers. If you aren't getting these layers it's likely due to your butter warming within the dough or failing to keep clean straight edges while you roll out the dough.

- Puff Pastry can sometimes be tricky; if you have trouble, please visit our recipe troubleshooting group here, and we can help you.

- These apple turnovers can be frozen if you cook for yourself or a smaller group. Be sure to thaw them out in your refrigerator for a few hours before baking them.

Credit

Escoffier: Le Guide Culinaire