This Pie Crust Mini Turnover Cookies with jam are an easy way to make dessert when you have a sweet tooth. The recipe comes from Transylvania. The pie crust dough is rolled out, cut in small round shapes and filled with your favorite jam. Delicious and easy to make!
This is an old family little treasure, coming from my paternal German-Romanian grandmother who lived in Transylvania. I have only few recipes from Herta, my grandmother, but plenty of warm memories about her baking . These Pie Crust Mini Turnover Cookies With Jam are some of my favorite cookies she used to make.
These cookies are easy to make, delicious and versatile. The best part is that the dough can be also used to make pie crust. My personal research showed me that most of the Romanian pie crust recipes are made with vinegar and water, or wine, probably because the acidity from the vinegar inhibits the gluten to develop, therefore the crust ends up being more tender.
In my opinion, it is a reliable recipe for producing a good pie crust. It uses just a small amount of vinegar(half in my recipe) compared to the amount of water in the dough, but it is just enough to make a difference in the finished crust.
Recently, I saw many American articles saying that adding vinegar or lemon juice to a dough doesn’t do anything to it. As much as I am trying to respect these opinions, I am still wondering why people used vinegar in their pie crusts for hundreds of years. I know that the vinegar addition to the recipes was and still is very popular in many Easter European countries, therefore if you have a good explanation for why vinegar is used, I am open to the conversation.
You can make this dough by hand or in the food processor. Both methods will give you good results. Also, in my opinion you can use either white vinegar or apple cider vinegar in this recipe. You won’t be able to smell or taste either vinegar in the finished crust.
After the dough is rolled, cut it with a water glass or a round cookie cutter, then place a dollop of jam in the middle. My grandmother used to fold the cookie in half and seal it with a fork. Relatively easy to make, the cookies are a delicious snack or dessert to have around.
Dust these babies with some powder sugar and serve. They are great with coffee, awesome for holidays or just lazy Sundays with your family. The sweetness of the cookie comes only from the jam inside and the powder sugar on top because the dough has no sugar at all. Enjoy and let me know if you liked them!
If you liked this recipe, you might also enjoy these Czech Bars, or my favorite bars, Saxon Walnut And Rose Hip Jam Bars. They are both delicious and very close to my heart.
- 3⅕ cups/14oz/400 g all purpose flour
- 8.8oz/2⅕ sticks/250 g cold butter (chopped into small pieces)
- 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- 4 tablespoons cold water
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2-3 tablespoonspowder sugar for dusting the cookies
- 16 oz/453g fruit jam(plums, apples, strawberries, raspberries etc)
- Preheat oven to 350F/180C.
- Cover a cookie sheetwith parchment paper and set aside.
- The dough can be made by hand or in a food processor.
- If you're doing it by hand, sift the flour in a bowl and add the cold chopped butter.
- Use a pastry blender to cut the butter into the flour until you obtain pea-size crumbles.
- Over the crumbles, add water, salt, and vinegar and mix together with your hands until you get a smooth dough.
- If you are using a food processor, add the butter to the flour and pulse 3-4 times until the dough looks like pea size crumbles.
- Add water, salt, and vinegar and pulse until you obtain a smooth dough.
- Roll it on a floured surface to about ¼ inch thickness and cut circles with a water glass or a round cookie cutter.
- Place a dollop of jam in the middle and fold the dough in half.
- Use a fork to press the edges of the cookie together and place it on the cookie sheet.
- When all cookies are formed, bake them at 350F/180C for about 17-20 mins.
- Remove from the oven and let them cool on a metal rack.
- Dust powder sugar over each cookie.
Hi ! I was wondering if you can tell me if I can use Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry sheets instead of the homemade dough ? Thanks 🙂
Of course, but as you can imagine, they will have a different texture! After all, they are cookies, if you use puff pastry, they will become pastries! Very different!
What are the instructions for making it with a pie crust?
Hi Dorothy, I am not sure what you mean. There are instructions on how to make the dough that could be used to make these cookies or a beautiful pie crust. What kind of instructions are you talking about?
I tried making these cookies and the dough was breaking all the time as I was working with it in a cookie form…. where did I go wrong?
I am not sure why it happened to you. The ratio between the butter and the flour is great to create a smooth dough that is easy to work with. It never happened to me. How did you measure the flour? In cups or in grams? Sometimes you might get more flour if you use cups, depends on how you measure it. Unfortunately, most Americans use cups because they think it is easy, but a scale is more reliable. Grams or ounces are the way to go. This would be my explanation…