These cherry turnovers with homemade puff pastry are the real deal. They are made using an easy-to-follow homemade puff pastry recipe. If you’ve ever been intimidated by making your own French puff pastry you’ll definitely want to try these! The process takes a bit of time, but it isn’t hard and your patience will reward you with buttery and flaky pastries that are to die for.
You might also like our lemon curd hand pies or homemade croissants!
Watch our step by step video!
Old Fashioned Cherry Turnovers Using Homemade Puff Pastry
Cherry turnovers are easier to make than you might think. And not just cherry, but any variety. YUM! I love pies and pastries. I prefer them to rich desserts and cakes, hands down. The technique for turnovers is very similar to my homemade croissants because it also uses a puff pastry recipe. You can also use this recipe for making Danish style pastries and more.
A friend of mine, who was born and raised in Denmark, hosted a cooking class for the ladies at church years ago and taught us how to make homemade puff pastry to use for croissants, turnovers and other delicious pastries. She made both savory and sweet varieties. My favorite way to use puff pastry is in cherry turnovers.
Easy Homemade Puff Pastry
Puff pastry sheets from the store are easy, but there’s just something so satisfying about making real puff pastry at home!The process of making homemade puff pastry dough it isn’t hard, but the standard way takes about 6 hours start to finish.
Over the years I’ve experimented with the chill times to see if I could chill the dough for less time and still end up with a flaky cherry turnover. Guess what? YOU CAN. I now make batches of delicious puff pastry in half the time. It still takes more time and patience than a batch of cookies, but it is well worth it. Make a batch on a rainy day—you won’t be sorry!
Ingredients in Puff Pastry Dough
There are only 4 ingredients: Butter, flour, salt and ice water.
You can fill puff pastry dough with anything you’d like! Eggs and cheese, chocolate, Nutella, apple pie filling, cherry pie filling, you name it—it’ll make a great turnover.
Before baking, brush with an egg wash and sprinkle in coarse sugar for the best texture and golden brown color!
I make these on days that I am home and doing laundry etc. I’ll take a couple of minutes to roll my dough out, fold it, wrap it up in plastic wrap and stick it back in the refrigerator for a half an hour then do it again, and again. It really is that easy. I promise.
Need to leave the dough in the refrigerator longer? That’s totally fine. You can leave it in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours in between rolling it out each time if you need to run an errand.
You have to try making cherry turnovers using this homemade puff pastry recipe at least once to taste the difference. And believe me, it’s there!
Cherry Turnover Recipe with Homemade Puff Pastry (Printable Recipe)
Cherry Turnovers With Homemade Puff Pastry
These cherry turnovers with homemade puff pastry are the real deal. They are made using an easy-to-follow homemade puff pastry recipe. If you've ever been intimidated by making your own French puff pastry you'll definitely want to try these! The process takes a bit of time, but it isn't hard and your patience will reward you with buttery and flaky pastries that are to die for.
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Servings: 9 pastries
Calories: 491kcal
Ingredients
- 3 1/2 cup flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons chilled butter 3 1/4 sticks, divided
- 1 cup ice water plus more as needed
- 1 can cherry pie filling
- sugar for sprinkling
- 1 egg
- 1 Tbsp. water
Instructions
- Measure out 6 tablespoons of butter and place back in the refrigerator.
- Place the remaining chilled butter on a work surface, in between two pieces of waxed paper. Using a rolling pin or the heal of your hand, smash the butter into the surface until pliable, taking care not to over work the butter as it should stay chilled. Work butter into a 5-inch square. Wrap and place in refrigerator.
- Sift together flour and salt into a large mixing bowl. Dice the 6 tablespoons of chilled butter.
- Remember the 6 tablespoons of butter that you set aside? Go ahead and get that out and dice it into small cubes. Place the diced butter into the mixing bowl and, using a pastry blender, blend until the mixture is a coarse meal.
- Make a well in the center of the mixture and add the water. Use a rubber spatula to gradually blend the water with the flour mixture, mixing just until a rough, sticky dough is formed. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.
- Remove the rested dough from the refrigerator and place on a lightly floured work surface. Roll out dough into a 12-inch circle, being careful not to pull or tear the dough. Unwrap the butter square and place into the center of the circle and fold the edges of the dough over the butter, pressing to seal the edges.
- You should now have a square of butter wrapped in dough.
- Now we will begin the rolling process. The dough will be rolled out a total of 6 times.Using a rolling pin, roll the square into a 16 by 8-inch rectangle. (The dough may need to be pounded with the rolling pin several times to allow the butter to become more pliable.) Be careful not to tear the dough. Sprinkle any sticky areas with a tiny amount of flour.
- Fold the rectangle into thirds, as you would a business letter.
- Rotate the dough a quarter turn and roll into ANOTHER 16 by 8-inch rectangle.
- Fold again as you would a business letter.
- Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Note: you can write a "2" on the plastic wrap with a permanent marker to help you remember that you already rolled the dough out two times.
- Return the rested dough to a lightly floured surface and repeat the process of rolling the dough into a rectangle, making business-letter folds, giving it a quarter turn and rolling and folding once more.
- Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least another 30 minutes. Note: you can write a "4" on the plastic wrap with a permanent marker to help you remember that you already rolled the dough out four times.
- Remove the dough from the refrigerator and place on a lightly floured work surface. Roll into a 16 by 8-inch rectangle and fold again like a business letter. Roll out again and fold again. You have now rolled and folded the dough a total of 6 times. Wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.Now the pastry is ready to be rolled and used in the desired puff pastry recipe.
- Roll dough 1/4" thick and cut it (using a pizza cutter) into 5" squares. Add 1-2 tablespoons of filling in the center, then fold the square in half to form a triangle.
- Dip a finger in water and run it along the seam and press to close. Place pastries on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.Mix egg and water to create an egg wash and brush the tops of pastries using a pastry brush. Sprinkle with sugar.
- Bake @ 400 degrees for 22-25 minutes or until golden.
Notes
Make ahead instructions: If desired, dough can rest refrigerated for up to 2 days after the 4th roll out if you'd like to make it ahead of time. When ready to use, roll the dough out on a floured surface two more times and refrigerate for 30 minutes. The dough will be ready to use in any puff pastry recipe at this point.
You can make smaller turnovers if you'd like using 3"-4" squares of dough. Bake for 15-17 minutes.
These turnovers are also delicious sprinkled with powdered sugar or drizzled in vanilla glaze!
Nutrition
Calories: 491kcal
How many cherry turnovers does one batch of homemade puff pastry make?
This recipe will make 15-20 turnovers when rolled out 1/4″ and cut into 6″ squares.
What makes puff pastry puff?
Each time you roll out the dough and fold it into thirds it creates layers of butter. After repeating this process over and over and allowing the dough to chill, you have created quite a few layers that will expand when baking into the delicious puff pastry found at bakeries. A hot oven temperature also helps the puff pastries rise. Bake at 400 degrees.
What does the egg wash do for the homemade puff pastry?
An egg wash over a loaf or bread or batch of pastries helps the crust to brown.
Can I make puff pastry ahead of time?
This recipe will last for 2 days in the refrigerator before being rolled out a final time and baked.
What is the best Cherry Pie Filling?
I use canned in this recipe just to keep things easy, but if you’d like to make your own I have a great recipe using fresh cherries! This recipe makes enough for a pie. You can make a half batch for turnovers.
FRESH CHERRY PIE FILLING
- 4 c. fresh cherries, pitted
- 1/4 c. water
- 1 1/2 Tbsp. lemon juice
- 1/3 c. sugar
- 3 Tbsp. cornstarch
- 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
Heat cherries and all of the filling ingredients in a medium sauce pan. Bring to a boil, while stirring. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring frequently, until thickened (3-5 min). Allow filling to cool before pouring into pie crust.
This recipe is delicious! I added a very thin zig-zag layer of powdered sugar frosting and it really sweetened it up
Yay! So glad to hear!
Can you please help me everything I make turnovers or pie crust it crumbles while baking i never had this issue till I started using real butter I always used blue bonnet stick butter before im about to give up baking
Hi Michelle, did the cherry turnovers crumble too? I’ve never had these turnovers crumble or have the dough be dry. HOWEVER, in the past I have had issues with pie crust. I now use a pie crust recipe that calls for oil, butter AND shortening. Works great!
Favorite pie crust: https://gluesticksblog.com/summer-blackberry-pie/
I loved this recipe so much, but I did try and find a video, I couldn’t find one, is it may be on another site or does it not exist?
Anyway, I’m a little late to the game, so I hope you reply!
Hi Noa! I don’t have a video for making homemade puff pastry. I should make one!
Hello again!
I’m making the puff pastry recipe again for a cake. Do you know how much puff pastry this ends up being?
It makes 9 (5″) pastries. Hope that helps!
I clicked on the puff pastry recipe and there is nothing for Emeril.
Beth, thanks for letting me know that the link didn’t work anymore! I found the same recipe on Emeril’s actual website instead of Food Network. Here it is: https://www.emerils.com/127012/homemade-puff-pastry
Is there. Video to this process I’m more of a visual person lol
I did it !!
Image Link: https://scontent-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/t31.0 8/10922286_10155840052165131_8875446390214732913_o.jpg
Can you show me your conversions from cups to grams cause I was trying to do it, and it didn’t match up with your oz measurements. Like for the cake flour, 2/3 cup = 85g = 3oz but you put down about 2oz, so that just worried me that I might be getting other stuff wrong.
Also after the last step, can I just leave the unbaked pastry out till it gets to room temp cause this happens when I’m baking and waiting for a batch to finish in the oven.
Hi Naviah! They look awesome!
I didn’t create this recipe, it is from Emeril Lagasse so the oz. measurements are from him. I just use the cup measurements not the ounce ones. I usually just leave the dough in the refrigerator until I need it, hope that helps!
Can you freeze the dough?
Hi Lori! I haven’t ever frozen the dough, but a good friend of mine who made and sold her turnovers would freeze her dough on occasion. Hope that helps!
Why wont mine puff up really? I used country crock because it was all I had. Is that wrong? Email me at [email protected]
Hi Daniel! A lot of the time you can substitute margarine in baking, but there are some recipes that it just won’t work the same. Puff pastry is one of those and needs the butter for flavor and texture. It has just enough fat for taste and buttery melt in your mouth feel, but enough water to create steam for the pastry to ‘puff’ and be all flaky and tender. The texture of cold butter is also critical to the formation of all those layers. I wouldn’t give up on the recipe! Try it again with butter and let me know how it goes!
I will reply on the post here and then send you the e-mail as well incase anyone else had the same question! Have a great week!
I have a pastry dough recipe that I got from my Grandma , email me at [email protected] and I’ll send it to you. It’s not a puff pastry dough like Emeril’s.
Gosh, this looks simply FABULOUS! At first, when you said that is wasn’t store bought, I totally did not believe you! This looks great, and I can’t wait to try it!
These look so amazing. I can’t wait to try this recipe. Great job.
Those look so delicious! I love that you found a homemade recipe. (I’m going to have to try it.)
Wow – I am impressed!
these look amazing I hope you’ll link this (and any other projects of yours) up at my What We Wore and Made Party over at http://raegunwear.blogspot.com/search/label/WWWMW
They look delicious and are making my blood sugars skyrocket. (I have Diabetes.)
Thanks for the recipe and picts! 🙂
These look amazing!!!
I love turnovers…If you get a chance i’d love for you to share these at my first “Link & Greet Party” this weekend @CountryMommaCooks…Have a great day!
These look awesome…must give them a try! I am following you from the mingle hop and the finding new friends hop would love a follow back queenoftheblingandotheramazingthings.blogspot.com
Thanks
Regina
I’ve wanted to make puff pastry for a while but the recipes I have seen seemed rather complicated. I have these on my To Do Baking list!
Ohhh!! These look amazing!!! Thanks for sharing, I can’t wait to give them a try!!