Empanadas are beautifully sweet tasty dish originating from Spain and now very popular around the world including South America.
They are really quick and easy to make once you learn how to get the dough right, and you can pack them with all kinds of weird and wonderful fillings, sweet or savoury. This recipe is for a sweet empanada that you can fill with your favourite fruity jam, and it goes down a treat as a dessert.
You can either make your own homemade jam, or you can buy some good quality organic jam from the supermarket to save on time (and it’s quite cheap, too).
When you have made these wonderful little pockets of flavour, you can freeze them and use them up for breakfasts and desserts whenever you like they will need to defrost over around 4 to 5 hours however and you can pop them in the oven for 5-10 minutes to heat them back up.
Recipe (makes 14-16 empanadas)
Ingredients
250g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
200g cold coconut oil
125ml cold water
A teaspoon of jam to fill each empanada
Method
Preheat oven to 180C.
Mix together the flour and salt before working in the coconut oil. Then add enough water to make a dough that you can easily work into a ball without it being too sticky. Roll out to around 1/4cm thickness on a floured kitchen surface and cut circles with a cookie cutter.
Place a teaspoon of jam in the middle of each of the circles, then fold in half to make a half moon shape and push the outer edge down using a fork. Prick the top of the empanadas and cook on a tray lined with greaseproof paper for 15-20 minutes until golden. Et voila! The tastiest little fruit pockets you’ll ever eat!
