Vegan Empanadas

Vegan Sweet Empanadas with Pear and Apple Filling

Inspired by my grandmother's style of mixing different fruits in her empanadas, I used different types of apples and pears to add depth to these yummy treats.

Filling
diced apples
diced pears
grounded cloves
grounded cinnamon
evaporated sugar cane
almond flavor
Currants


Dough
3 sticks of Earth Balance Soy Butter
4 cups of Flour (1 part whole wheat and 1 part unbleached white)
1/8 cups Water (or as much needed to glue the dough together)


In a separate bowel, I mixed the butter and flour until the texture looked like crumbled feta cheese and then add water until the dough sticked together. I create 3 big balls of dough and roll each one out and use a cup to cut out thick circles (around 2 centimeters thick) that I will roll out to create thin ovalike empanada coverings.

In a saucepan, I boiled on a stove top some water with evaporated sugar cane, cinnamon, cloves and almond flavoring until the water looked completely saturated. I then added the diced apples and pears. Afterwards, I mixed the ingredients until the the fruits were completed drenched with the sweet juice. I then place the pot into the oven and baked the mixture for another 25 minutes at 350. After 25 minutes, I placed the pot back onto the stovetop and used a hand mixer to puree it with currants.

I spooned this mixture onto the middle part of each thin oval dough piece and folded it in semicircle to make the shape of an empanada. Sealed the edge and if space permitted, I forked the edges to make it look a little more textured.

I placed the finished pieces onto a well oiled cookie sheet and baked them at 350 for around 25 minutes.