These Pie Crust Mini Turnover Cookies With Jam are an easy-to-make dessert when you have a sweet tooth. The pie crust dough is rolled out, cut into small round shapes, and filled with your favorite jam. Delicious and easy to make!
Mini Turnover Cookies With Jam
This is an old family little treasure, coming from my paternal German-Romanian grandmother who lived in Transylvania.
I have only a few recipes from Herta, my grandmother, but plenty of warm memories of 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 put together, delicious, and versatile. The best part is that you can use the dough to make a pie crust.
My pie crust is made with vinegar
I recently saw some American articles saying that adding vinegar or lemon juice to a dough doesn’t do anything to it. As much as I respect these opinions, I wonder why people have used vinegar in their pie crusts for hundreds of years.
Interesting fact: My research showed me that most Romanian pie crust recipes are made with vinegar and water or wine, probably because the acidity from the vinegar inhibits the gluten from developing; therefore, the crust ends up being more tender.
In my opinion, it is a reliable recipe for producing a good pie crust. It uses two tablespoons of vinegar and four tablespoons of water, and it is just enough to make a difference in the finished crust.
I know that the vinegar added to the recipes was and still is very popular in many Eastern 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 a food processor. Both methods will give you good results.
Also, you can use either white vinegar or apple cider vinegar in this recipe. You won’t be able to smell or taste the 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 powdered sugar and serve. They are great with coffee, fantastic for holidays, or just lazy Sundays with your family.
The cookie’s sweetness 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 Rose Hip Jam Bars. They are both delicious and very close to my heart.
More recipes to love:
Cranberry Custard Pie With Cream Cheese Crust
Apricot Jam With Ginger Almonds And Mint
Mini Peppers Stuffed With Farmer Cheese
Pumpkin Cupcakes With Cream Cheese Frosting
Christmas Cookies & Bars From Around The World
Pie Crust Mini Turnover Cookies With Jam
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 ¼ cups all purpose flour
- 8.8 ounces unsalted butter cold, chopped into small pieces
- 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- 4 tablespoons water cold
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2-3 tablespoons powdered sugar
- 16 ounces fruit jam plums, apples, strawberries, raspberries etc
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F/180C.
- Prepare the baking sheet: Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper and set it aside.
- You can make the dough by hand or in a food processor:
- 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 with your hands until you get a smooth dough.
- 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.
- Shape the cookies: Roll the dough on a floured surface to about 1/4 inch thickness and cut circles with a water glass or a round cookie cutter.
- Add jam: Place a dollop of jam in the middle and fold the dough in half.
- Close the cookies: Use a fork to press the edges of the cookie together and place the cookie on the baking sheet.
- Bake: When all cookies are formed, bake them at 350F/180C for about 17-20 mins.
- Cool: Remove from the oven and let them cool on a metal rack.
- Serve: Dust powder sugar over each cookie and serve.
Nela
Friday 25th of November 2022
I look forward to trying these with some pie dough I have left over from a pie I made yesterday! As for the vinegar, I don’t know if this is Eastern European-specific, but I add vinegar to lots of my recipes simply because it adds some dimension to the flavor. American recipes tend to be one-dimensional: either all sweet, all salty, all savory. But adding just a touch of sour to this sweet recipe helps balance that flavor and make it less cloying, even though I realize that the sweetness is coming only from the jam and the sugar on top. Likewise, adding salt to sweet dishes is important for a balanced flavor profile, just like adding sweet to savory dishes — not always in the form of sugar… you can get your sweetness from, say, carrots or a sweet potato. TLDR: balance.
Kelsey De Jong
Sunday 29th of August 2021
Can I use a pie crust box mix?
Katie M.
Wednesday 24th of November 2021
@Kelsey De Jong, Why not? I do all the time. Since I'm single, I use a box of Jiffy pie crust mix. I just made two mini-squash pies and used the leftover for "turnovers" (we call them "brambles").
Randi
Thursday 14th of January 2021
THANK YOU SO MUCH for the answer. I have been searching for a recipe like this that looked goo. hehehe FOUND YOU :)
The Bossy Kitchen
Friday 15th of January 2021
You are very welcome.
Randi
Thursday 14th of January 2021
Is it wine vinegar or just white vinegar? I clicked on you list that took me to amazon to buy vinegar and it was just white vinegar. I keep the regular white at all times but not the wine vinegar. PLEASE LET ME KNOW THANKS
The Bossy Kitchen
Thursday 14th of January 2021
White vinegar is ok to use, don’t worry about red vinegar. Use what you have, this is what my grandma would do too! :-)
Friday 7th of February 2020