Gingerbread Empanadas
By Mike on Saturday, September 12, 2009, 16:47 - Permalink
This is a recipe for sweet, delicious dessert empanadas - made from gingerbread and stuffed with chocolate, marshmallow and raisins.
The Recipe
Ingredients:
For the gingerbread
- 200g Plain flour
- 50g Butter or margarine
- 50g Honey
- 50g Soft brown sugar
- Cold water to mix
- 1 Heaped teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 Rounded teaspoon baking powder
For the filling
- Chocolate (milk or dark)
- Marshmallows
- Raisins or other dried fruit
Method:
Put the sugar, honey and butter in a pan
Warm gently and stir until the ingredients are well combined
Don't overheat this mixture or it will burn
Sift the flour into a large bowl and add the baking powder and ginger
Mix the dry ingredients together
Pour in the sugar/butter/honey mixture from the pan - all in one go
Mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon
The mixture will eventually form soft, doughy crumbs
Add a small splash of cold water and mix again - the crumbs should start coming together into a dough
Turn the dough out onto a floured board and knead it a little to bring it together completely
Roll the dough out to about half a centimetre thick
Cut circles out of the dough
If you don't have a large circular cutter (I didn't) use a bowl or other object from the cupboard - using the funnel gave me about 12cm (5 inch) circles
I tried first using the top of a pint glass, but the resulting circle was too small to be able to enclose any decent amount of filling
Preheat the oven to 180 C
Add the chocolate, raisins and marshmallows, cut into smallish pieces
Place them on one half only, then fold over the other half and crimp around the edges with a fork
You may need to bunch up the trimmings of dough, knead and re-roll in order to cut out enough circles - I just managed to make five out of mine
Place the empanadas on a cookie sheet.
Bake in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes, or until evenly golden brown
Allow to cool on the tray for five minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely
the filling will be quite dangerously hot for a while - do not be tempted to bite into one until they have cooled sufficiently
Empanadas
Ordinarily, empanadas are savoury things - little pastry shells filled with meat, fish or vegetables in a piquant tomato-based sauce. I thought it might be fun to make a dessert version.
Alternative Fillings
Diced apple, cinnamon and brown sugar would work well, I'm sure - alternatively, large slices of fresh peach, or blueberries would be interesting.