Apple Turnovers

The other day I had a hankering for apple turnovers. Knowing that we had a bunch of phyllo dough in the freezer, I figured turnovers were within my reach. I didn't count on them taking forever to make, so naturally, they took forever. First you have to make the apple filling, then you have to mess around with the phyllo dough, finally you bake the darn things. They were quite delicious, but I'm not sure they were worth the trouble, given that you can just buy puff pastry and it's the same end result.

I did sort of follow a recipe, but really that was just to get the proportions remotely close to right. My reference recipe was this one, but I only had four apples. They were big apples, though.

First, melt the butter with the sugar and the cornstarch and other stuff.

Peel, core, and chop your apples; stir them into the goopy stuff.

Then it's time to play with phyllo dough. Mine was not sealed - apparently Ed used some a while ago, and so the sheets had dried out in the freezer. They broke into thirds, pretty much immediately. Not one to be put off by uncooperative phyllo dough, I figured that instead of folding them in half and stuff, I'd just layer a couple pieces and roll them up. It worked. Between every layer (I had 3-4 layers for each turnover, which may have been too much, as they had lots of crust and I thought they needed more apples), brush on some melted butter. This takes lots of butter, but that's what makes it so delicious!


Plop about 2-3 tbs of apple filling on one end of the phyllo. Keep the other sheets covered with a damp cloth.

Fold the dough over the apples, to make a triangle. Roll up triangularly, like a flag.

Don't be afraid to use your fingers to push the apples back into their pocket - you want lots of apples inside. They are tasty.






Then, brush the top with more butter, sprinkle with sugar if you want, and bake at 350F for 12-15 minutes.


And then do your best to not eat them all at once when they come out of the oven. Because they have an entire stick of butter in them, and Ed might want some, too.

These were quite delicious, but next time, I'm buying puff pastry. I imagine it'll be easier to work with. But they did get an approving Ed-rating, so worth it this time!