Don’t get me wrong; if you give me a hot dog at a baseball game, I’m not going to hurl it back in your face, but given the option, this butter-crisped, split-topped bun is the best. The meat and seasonings are placed in the top thanks to a brilliant design, leaving three reasonably flat edges for butter toasting.
| Prep Time: | 40 mins |
| Cook Time: | 20 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr |
| Servings: | 12 |
| Yield: | 12 empanadas |
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- ⅓ cup white sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup vegetable shortening
- 1 cup warm water
- 4 cups canned pure pumpkin
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 large beaten egg
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Make dough: Whisk together flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a large bowl. Cut shortening into flour mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in warm water, 2 tablespoons at a time, just until dough starts coming together. Knead dough a few times in the bowl.
- Transfer dough out onto a floured surface. Cut dough in quarters, then cut each quarter into thirds to make 12 equal portions. Roll each portion into a ball. Cover with a cloth and allow to rest while you make filling.
- Make filling: Mix together pumpkin, sugar, eggs, cinnamon, salt, ginger, and cloves in a large bowl until smooth.
- Roll each dough ball out on a floured surface into a thin, 6-inch circle. Spoon about 1/3 cup filling into the center of each dough circle. Fold dough over filling to make a half-moon-shaped pie, then crimp the edges together with a fork. Place onto the prepared baking sheets. Brush the tops with beaten egg.
- Bake in the preheated oven until the filling is hot and crusts are shiny and browned, about 20 minutes.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 384 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 52 g |
| Cholesterol | 47 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 6 g |
| Saturated Fat | 5 g |
| Sodium | 710 mg |
| Sugars | 26 g |
| Fat | 19 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Why did it not ask for brown sugar?? Bland!! Also did not brown in 20 min. Took over 30 at 375!! Very disappointed!! All this work.
The recipe calls for 4 cups of pumpkin. I’m lucky if I used 1.5 cups. Wasted a lot, unless you want to make 3 dozen empanandas. The recipe calls for too much cloves too. Cut it in half. Overall disappointed.
I made this recipe with a few changes. I boiled cinnamon sticks and 2 T of anisé and 1 cup brown sugar. I omitted the sugar in the flour, and used the spicy water instead. Delicious!
The recipe was ok, the problem I had was they turned out too thin, crumbly and not enough dough. Tweaking it what I will have to do. Maybe increase the dry ingredients and maybe use unsalted butter. It’s a great experiment for me, I just know nobody anywhere in my area have they made anything remotely close to this good tasting recipe.
It was great and easy to follow directions
Loved this recipe!! Definitely use the dough recipe, reminded me of my grandmother’s recipe. Now I will share with my grandkids. Thank you!
It was delicious, but I added cinnamon, a little clove and anise to the dough. Mmmm!!
This is a great recipe! The spices made the pumpkin SO tasty and not overwhelming. These brought back memories of my youth and my family. Sadly, I have no recipes to look back to.
Crust could be better. It’s to much like pie crust.
I grew up in San Antonio, eating empanadas from local bakeries every weekend. This is a good recipe. The dough is a little more like pie crust – but it’s great. It’s strong enough to not fall apart. We added a teaspoon of anise seeds and a teaspoon of cinnamon to the dough. And we had lots of the filling left over.
Love! I did add cinammon to the batter and used Anise in the water. Made half the filling but still too much
Definitely will make it again!
This made way too much filling and the dough was a bit dry and cracked so that filling seeped out. The dough was tasty, although some anise would make it more authentic tasting. The filling was also quite good. With some modifications this could definitely be a 5-star recipe.
I guess I made a variation of this recipe 🙂 I used refrigerated biscuit dough regular size, rolled out. Filling (I didn’t want too sweet) large canned pumpkin, 3 tsp pumpkin pie spice and a little extra cinnamon, 1tsp vanilla, juice from 1/4 orange, 2 tbs Splenda brown sugar blend. Egg wash tops with sprinkles cinnamon sugar. Bake per biscuit direction. Yum yum taste of fall
Tinned pumpkin not really a thing in Australia, so I cooked up some fresh. The amount of moisture remaining meant that the spiced mix to go in the pastry wasn’t very thick. I would reduce the liquid next time, but everyone loved the final product!
Absolutely delicious. I will definitely make this again. I can’t wait for Mexican night, at my house. These Pumpkin Empanadas will be on the menu.
I made this as a trial run thru before christmas. My husband & kids loved them. I am so happy I came across this recipe. Thank you
So I did make some adjustments to filling. I did actually roast two small orange pumpkins. Two small makes a lot of filling btw! Probably like 6 cups. Also I did make a double batch of dough and I still had quite a bit of filling left. So I think overall proportions are a bit off when it comes to dough to filling ratio. But again I did make my own pumpkin puree. Anyway I added stuck to the recipe when it came to spices and only added vanilla…because why not? Mexican vanilla probably would’ve been nicer. Also I took the suggestion of many others and added cinnamon to the dough and just dashed it in. Also did use some butter as I didn’t have enough shortening. The empanadas did bake longer and I wish they would’ve browned more. Baked for 40min and still a bit pale. Anyway they are delicious. I’m sure my dad will be pleased. I’m not a huge fan in general of empanadas but I recognize good flavor ! Again wish they brown nicer but good recipe thank you!
Tasted great, looked pretty good, but I was not happy with the directions. Used fresh roasted pumpkin, pureed to 4 cups. I had enough leftover filling to make a separate 9-inch pie. (Whipped in the leftover egg wash, a small can of sweetened condensed milk and a pinch of baking soda.) Also I had to bake my empanadas 30 minutes for better color, not 20.
Came out great, Note: both dough and filling are sweet. Made 25 empanadas
An excellent base recipe, but a little too sweet for us. For the filling, I will cut the sugar in half next time. Also I used 3/4 cup softened butter instead of shortening and 2-15 oz cans of pumpkin puree. The dough came out perfectly and was easy to roll. Next time I will put some smoky salsa or enchilada sauce over the top after baking to complement the sweet pumpkin filling. I will definitely try these again and bring them to a Halloween party coming up!