The Best Ever Vegan Empanada Dough
2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup vegan soy butter, cut into small cubes (I use Earth Balance)
1 1/2 teaspoon egg replacer powder + 2 tablespoon water
1/3 cup cold water
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
In a large bowl combine the salt and flour. Add the margarine and mix into flour mixture with your fingers or a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse pea-sized lumps. Set bowl aside. In a small bowl, combine the 1 1/2 tsp. egg replacer and 2 tablespoon water and mix until well-combined. Add vinegar and the remainder of the water. Add to the wet mixture to the flour mixture, stirring with a spoon until barely combined. Turn out mixture onto a lightly floured counter top or pastry board and bring together with your hands, kneading gently once or twice, just enough to bring dough together. Take note that it is very important that you do not knead it more than this or else the dough will become too hard to work with when rolling it out. Form dough into a flat disc, wrap in plastic or parchment paper and chill in the refrigerator for about one hour.
Heat oven to 350 F. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and on a floured counter or pastry board roll out into a large disc, about 1/4"-1/5" thick. To make small empanadas, use a large-mouthed glass, such as a wine glass, to cut out rounds of dough. To make large empanadas, use a larger circular item, such as a teacup plate or plastic lid (you'll need to cut around them with a knife). On one side of the dough, place 1 tablespoon filling (for small empanadas) or 1/3 cup filling (for large empanadas). Keep in mind that too much filling will stretch the dough and cause holes or misshaped pastries due to stretching.
If the dough is slightly sticky, simply seal the edges of the empanada with a fork, pressing down to seal the two halves of the pastry. If the dough is a little on the drier side, dab a tiny bit of water around one half of the dough circle and close the two halves, sealing with a fork.
With a spatula, lift the empanada onto a floured baking sheet. To prevent the filling from seeping out the sides of the empanada, with a sharp knife gently cut two small "v"s into the top of the pastry - this will let any steam inside escape from these cuts. After all the empanadas have been assembled, place the baking sheet in the oven and bake the pastries for 20-25 minutes, or until lightly golden on their bottoms.
This recipe was submitted by Doodleyboo and comes from Doodleyboo's blog at http://veganucopia.blogspot.com/.
SO HOW'D IT GO?
im having a friend and her sons over for a palydate tomorrow. this sounds like great, easy breakfasty yumminess. im going to fill with apples and cinnamon! YUM!
My husband was born in Argentina and is an empanada lover so I just had to try this recipe. I made this dough on a Sunday and refrigerated it wrapped in plastic wrap until I rolled it out and prepared the empanadas on a Wednesday. I found that upon preparing and mixing the dough it was necessary to add some cold water to properly combine all the ingredients, not unusual since I live in an arid climate. As with all pastry doughs it must remain cold and refrigerated as much as possible otherwise the dough gets chewy. I divided the dough and made sure to refrigerate sections that were waiting to be rolled out. Also, after cutting the circles "tapitas" out you must lightly brush them all with a little water or binder like egg substitute to help them to get sticky so that when you fold them they adhere better. Overall these turned out very good, and with some practice I am sure the dough would be better. I always wanted to revise our families traditional empanada dough recipe to be healthier and vegan and this recipe absolutly does that.
Never having had empanadas before, I have no idea what the dough is supposed to be like, but I thought this was ok. Kinda bland, kinda dry, but not terrible.
Ours came out very crumbly and dry. Reminded me of the crust on a pop-tart. Will try with maybe more butter and more water next time. Empanadas that I have had in the past, or pastelitos which I see around here more, seem to have more of a flaky pastry-like quality. This is a great idea and we'll will keep trying if others post suggestions. They will definitely all get eaten anyhow! We used a black bean filling. Someone spoke of potato in the dough and, I believe, those are Colombian empanadas which are a little different than I think this recipe was going for. I think this would be a good crust for a sweet filling.
After trying some vegan empanadas at a restaurant I decided to make them at home. I tried this recipe, and compared to the ones I had at the restaurant, these were terrible! The dough was just not good at all, sorry. I found a recipe online for a traditional empanada using yuca (or a potato), and that was really good. I hate to be the one person who didn't like the recipe, but that's just how I feel.
has anyone tried non-wheat flour?
i'm curious to use spelt instead.
I haven't tried spelt, but when I make this recipe I usually use 1 1/4 cups wheat, and 1 cup of all purpose. :)
has anyone tried non-wheat flour?
i'm curious to use spelt instead.
oooo these sound lovely! But I'm not too familiar with empanadas. What other things would you use as the filling? Sweet things? Savory things? I want to try them!
This dough is really good! I got a ton of little ones out of it. I think I kneaded it too much though, because my first batch last night was really hard to roll. I put it in the fridge and used the rest today and it was a little better. :) I filled them with Spanish Rice flavored Rice-a-roni mixed with refried beans.
This dough is awesome. I have about 10 different ideas for fillings I can't wait to try!