How to make a flaky and moist pie/empanada dough - Esencias Panamenas (2024)

FAQs

Why put vinegar in empanada dough? ›

Adding a little vinegar to your dough will result in a tender, pliable, and flaky crust because it slightly inhibits gluten development, leading to a crust that is flakier and easier to work with. The great thing about vinegar is that you really only need a little bit of it to help your pie/empanada dough.

While pie dough is designed to be flaky, empanada dough is meant to be more tender. Pastry for empanadas has a higher flour-to-fat ratio, making it sturdy and perfect for wrapping around meaty fillings. Some recipes use lard or an additional egg as the fat source, but our recipe keeps it simple and easy with butter.

What Can You Substitute for Empanada Dough? If you're looking for a shortcut, store-bought pie dough can be used to make empanadas. You may need to roll the dough out slightly thinner—it will produce a flakier result than typical empanada dough and is better for baking than frying.

Add 2½ cups all-purpose flour, 1 stick butter, 1 egg, ¼ cup cold water, and 1 pinch salt to a food processor fitted with a dough blade. Pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. See notes if mixing by hand.

But there are two much more important perks to using vinegar: it provides a little insurance against overworking the dough. And, that splash of vinegar will keep your dough from oxidizing and turning gray.

Vinegar helps with the rise of our baked goods

When vinegar reacts with baking soda, it creates carbon dioxide bubbles, which act as leavening agents. So as the batter bakes, these tiny bubbles expand, causing the cake to rise and giving it that light, airy texture we all love.

Pie Crust Ingredients

Flour: This flaky pie crust recipe starts with all-purpose flour. Salt: A pinch of salt enhances the flavor and promotes a tender, moist crust. Butter: Cold butter adds rich flavor and creates steam as it melts, ensuring a perfectly flaky finished product.

There are three types of pastry dough in a classically trained chef's arsenal that should be known by heart. To the uninformed observer, these doughs may seem quite similar, even interchangeable.

If you know how to make homemade flour tortillas, you know how to make empanada dough for frying. There's not a lot of difference — chief one being that you use ice water with empanada dough, and hot water for tortillas. Another difference is the flour.

Argentine empanadas with beef, cheese, or chicken. Chilean empanadas with beef, cheese, or seafood. Mexican empanadas with spicy beef, potato, or pumpkin.

Why is my empanada dough dry? ›

The main ingredients are water and corn flour. If you don't work quickly, the dough will dry out and start to crack. Cracked empanada dough means that your empanadas will also have cracks in them, which means oil seeping into your filling in the fryer and drying out your empanada.

Both cooking methods produce delicious empanadas. If you want a healthier merienda, bake them in the oven. If you're working with less time, frying them is the way to go. Try both and ask your loved ones to vote on their favorite.

Prepare flavorful homemade empanadas easily with convenient GOYA® Tapas Criollas – Dough for Turnover Pastries, which are perfect for baking or frying. They have a round disk shape and are made from wheat flour and margarine.

Spanish colonizers introduced traditional empanadas to the new world in the 16th century. Empanadas have their origin in the Spanish action Empanar connoting “wrap in bread.” Traditional empanadas hence are simply beef stuffing wrapped in pastry dough. Beef empanadas are small palm-sized meat pockets.

A standard Ilocos empanada recipe calls for rice flour, water, salt, and oil. But for the Batac version, you need to add atsuete powder for that eye-catching orange hue. Meanwhile, the Vigan empanadas are pale, and their dough is thinner, producing a crisp shell.

Don't skip the bread flour or the vinegar; both are key to making a stretchy but light dough.

I found that white vinegar always help with the egg especially when you are working with raw eggs like in this recipe so I always like to add little white vinegar to the mixture, it will help you with avoiding any egg smell especially if you ae not using free range fresh eggs.

Assembling Your Empanadas

When rolling your pastry dough out, make sure to place a good amount of flour onto the surface you're rolling the dough onto. Flour keeps the dough from sticking to surfaces and helps it roll better, so don't be afraid to be somewhat generous in using it here.