Empanadas or Sweet Dough Pies

When I got home tonight Laura and Tricia were busy in the kitchen making empanadas.  Empanadas are a pastry that you can really fill with anything.  Since we love sweet potatoes and we have a ton of sweet potatoes in the pantry, they were making sweet potato empanadas!  Tricia is Hispanic and that's what they are called.  They are essentially the same thing as what are called sweet dough pies in Cajun culture or I guess Southern culture.

First, Tricia made up some dough and added cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar to sweeten it up.  Then she divided it up into balls ready to roll out into circles similar to what you would do if you were making tortillas. 

Sweet dough

Then Tricia peeled, diced and boiled some sweet potatoes.  Once they are done, you mash them up real good, add sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg and mix up.
 

Sweetened Sweet Potatoes

Get a rolling pin and roll out your sweet dough balls into circles.


Rolled out circle of sweet dough

Go ahead and spoon out some of your spiced up sweet potato onto one half of the circle of sweet dough.  

Adding the filling

Next just fold over half of the circle of sweet dough to form a half-moon pie and crimp the edges with a fork to seal it up.  You don't want the sweetness to seep out while it is baking. 


Empanadas ready for the oven

Preheat your oven to 350 and bake for about 20 minutes or until they are nice and brown and the aroma is drawing everyone to the oven like steel to a magnet.  

Hot out of the oven

Here's a close-up of a plump empanada just waiting to be gobbled up. 

Now let's break one in half and let the aroma fill the room and enjoy the great, sweet, satisfying taste of a sweet potato filled empanada!  

Yum, Yum, Yum!

We all ate more than our share tonight, but we tried to ration them so we can have one with some coffee for breakfast tomorrow morning.  We made them with sweet potatoes, but you can get creative and fill them with whatever you have on hand.  Empanadas are usually filled with either sweet potatoes or pumpkin.  You can fill them with fig preserves, blackberries, blueberries, apples, peaches, etc.  I promise none will go stale or go to waste!