Use this in-depth tutorial to learn how to make homemade berry turnovers with a from-scratch puff pastry variation and a jammy mixed berry filling. The pastry dough comes together using a “rough puff” method where you carefully work butter into your dry ingredients and then fold and flatten the dough many times to create countless flaky layers. Unlike the breakfast pastries dough, this dough does not require any yeast and unlike croissants and traditional puff pastry, this dough does not require laminating with a separate layer of butter. Rather, the layers and crisp flakiness come from the particular mixing and folding methods. The turnovers are lightly sweetened and perfect for dessert or alongside a cup of coffee.
Using this simplified method and a handful of basic ingredients, you’ll be amazed that you can make puff pastry from scratch within just a few hours. I’m still stunned with this outcome! And after you master these flaky berry turnovers, you’ll enjoy using this dough wherever you use a single pie crust or store-bought puff pastry.
Have you ever heard of “rough puff” pastry? It’s become a really popular method with professionals and home bakers because it produces bakery-style puff pastry with oodles of buttery, flaky layers. Cookbook author and chef Claire Saffitz has a wonderful recipe for it and the term “rough puff” is often used on The Great British Bake Off! The trick is to work large pieces of cold butter into dry ingredients (flour and often a bit of sugar and salt), and hydrate it all with ice cold water. Sometimes bakers grate butter into the mix or use a food processor. There’s lots of ways to make rough puff pastry.
With this recipe, I stick with cold cubes of butter and use my hands to rub the butter into the flour mixture. Your hands are your best tool and method here because it’s nearly impossible to over-mix the dough this way. If the dough is over-mixed and you break down the butter too much, you’ll lose layers.
Pie crust, while buttery and flaky, is not nearly as light, doughy, and crisp as this shortcut puff pastry. Yeasted pastry dough, such as something we can use for croissants or a blueberry cream cheese pastry braid, contain yeast. This recipe simply relies on big chunks of cold butter (lots of it) and folding.
After you prepare the dough and chill it in the refrigerator, you will begin rolling it out with a rolling pin and folding it like a business letter, rolling it out again, folding again, and so on. You will roll + fold it a total of 6 times.
. *Note that I sliced a sliver off the end so I could show you this!
This shortcut pastry dough comes together with flour, sugar, salt, cold butter, and cold water.
The dough requires 2 separate refrigeration steps, but the 2nd one is only 15 minutes. You can easily make this dough in a few hours or over the course of 2 days. I always appreciate make-ahead dough where you have plenty of options in terms of timing. You can also freeze the dough, too. (See recipe below.) After both refrigeration steps, you can use this dough in many recipes such as these turnovers, butternut squash tart, cranberry brie puff pastry tarts, mushroom tarts, or even these homemade cinnamon palmiers.
This thickened berry filling is adapted from these strawberry sauce and blueberry sauce recipes. I reduced it down so we have just enough for the turnover recipe below. It’s sweet like jam with big chunks of delicious berries. Feel free to use frozen berries, too. You could also use the filling from these apple turnovers and top them with salted caramel for an extra special treat.
Tip: Make sure it cools completely before using as the filling in your turnovers. My recipe below works this into the instructions.
.. In this step, I’m briefly/barely rubbing the butter into the flour to start combining them. This step is only possible if the butter is very cold because if the butter is warm, you’ll end up with paste.
. That’s great! Now let’s add the ice cold water 1 Tablespoon at a time, using our hands to toss it all together. (Note that I usually start with 2 Tablespoons of water before I begin tossing together.) You can use a spatula or spoon for tossing, but I really do recommend your hands so you get a good feel of the dough.
. As the dough begins to hydrate after about 4 Tablespoons of water, you can start lightly squeezing or clumping the dough together with your hands to help bring it together. Mixture will still be very shaggy, as you can see.
. Do not add any more or any less. If your dough reaches this point before adding 6 Tablespoons of water, your butter was likely too warm. You can continue with the recipe with less water, but the dough will not be as flaky.
. There will still be large chunks of butter. That’s great! Begin patting it down with your hands until it’s about 3/4 – 1 inch thick, about a 5×8 inch rectangle:
. This is exactly how we fold biscuits dough, too!
1st refrigeration: Now use your hands to gently flatten and smooth out any cracks in your dough “business letter” then wrap it in plastic wrap, aluminum foil, parchment paper, or place in a sealed container, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours.
Now it’s time for the rolling pin. Remove dough from the refrigerator and begin rolling out.
You’re going for a 1/2 inch thick, about a 6 inch wide and 12 inch tall rectangle. The exact dimensions are not important, but the thickness is. Fold the rectangle into thirds like a business letter:
Turn it clockwise or counter clockwise, then grab your rolling pin again:
Repeat this 5 more times, for a total of 6 rolling out + folding sessions. After the 6th time, wrap the dough up again and chill for at least 15 minutes and up to 24 hours.
Success Tip: If the dough “business letter” is so thick or impossible to roll out, cover it with a clean kitchen towel and let it rest for 5 minutes before trying again. The butter just needs to slightly soften. Lightly flour your work surface whenever necessary.
Now the dough is packed with layers upon layers of buttery dough. Roll it out to a 12-inch square. Cut into 9 4-inch squares.
Place the squares onto 2 lined baking sheets. Place 1 heaping Tablespoon of berry filling in the center of each.
Fold over to create a triangle. Some filling is bound to leak out. Don’t worry about it! Crimp edges with a fork. If dough has gotten too soft at this point and the dough is too sticky to crimp shut, stop and refrigerate everything for 10 minutes. You want to make sure you have a tightly sealed turnover to help prevent it from spilling out in the oven.
After shaping each turnover and crimping the edges, I strongly recommend refrigerating them for at least 15 minutes as you preheat the oven and make your egg wash. This helps guarantee they will hold shape.
Cut slits into the tops of shaped turnovers and brush with egg wash (egg + milk or just use milk). Sprinkle with coarse sugar—I usually use Sugar in the Raw or these coarse sugar sprinkles, both of which can be found in the baking aisle of major grocery stores.
Bake until golden brown. Butter will definitely leak from this dough, so don’t get nervous if you see that happening in the oven.
These homemade berry turnovers use a shortcut version of traditional puff pastry dough that's often referred to as rough puff pastry. Each bite is mostly flaky dough with just a touch of berry filling. Make sure the butter is very cold before beginning the dough.
