Cinnamon Apple Empanada

This is a fun little dessert that you can make big  or small, depending on the cutters you use.  Or maybe I should say small or wee.  I have a cut and seal from Pampered Chef and it worked great.   You can cut with a biscuit cutter and crimp the edges by hand.  You could even fold the circle over and crimp the edges into a triangle shape.  You decide!

Cinnamon Apple Empanada

2 Large Granny Smith apples
1 Tablespoon lemon juice, I used the kind in a green bottle that I keep in the door of the fridge
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 heaping teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Pie Crust
butter
egg
white sugar

I used a refrigerated pie crust from the biscuit section of the grocery store.  Take it out and let it come to room temperature.  Preheat oven to 425.

                                     

Peel and core the apples and cut up into a small dice.  Place them in a medium bowl and sprinkle the lemon juice over them.  Stir to coat the apples with the lemon juice.  This will keep them from turning brown...except for the brown from the cinnamon!

Add the brown sugar.  I wanted to get a firmly packed 1/3 cup so I used the proper measure and smooshed it into the side of the brown sugar bag.  1/3 cup firmly packed!

                                     

Add the cinnamon and the ginger.  I have a microplane, so I grated part of a nutmeg over the whole concoction until there was a bit of nutmeg everywhere and decided that was 1/4 teaspoon. 

                                      

Unroll one of the pie crusts and use a rolling pin to get them a bit bigger and thinner.  Not too thin or it will tear.  Cut as many circles as you can.  Place 1 tablespoon of the apple mixture in the center of

each circle and top with a small pat of butter.  Then roll out the other pie crust and cut more circles.  I used my fingers to stretch these circle a bit more.  Place them on top of the filled circles.  Use the crimping part of the Pampered Chef tool to seal the edges. 

                                                                                                                   

If you don't have one, use a fork to press all along the edge and to seal in the filling.  I re-rolled the leftover dough to get as many circles as I could and then filled them, too.  If you have left over filling set it aside for later.

Place the finished empanadas on a cookie sheet.  I used a Silpat to keep it from sticking.  Some of the juices may leak out and it was easy to clean off the Silpat.  You could also use parchment paper. 

                                        

Beat the egg and brush it over the tops.  Then sprinkle with sugar and bake in a 425 oven for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown.  Check the crimped edges for browning, all the sugar on top will make it look kind of white.

These would be fine just as they are, but I served the empanadas in a bowl with ice cream on top.  In fact the bowls were big and the empanadas were small so I put two in the bowl.  I had some apple mixture left over, so I spooned a bit over the ice cream.  Really good.