Fresh Cherry Turnovers are the best reason for using up your sweet, fresh cherries! These are not the quickie puff pastry cherry turnover recipe that uses canned cherry pie filling. Instead, these cherry turnovers have a melt-in-your-mouth cream cheese crust wrapped around a fresh homemade cherry pie filling. They’re very much like cherry hand pies, and they are so much more delicious.
If you’re looking for more amazing turnover recipes, try my recipes for easy apple turnovers or Peanut Butter S’Mores Turnovers.
Turnovers are a mini pie that you can make for dessert, and you can also get away with eating them for breakfast, calling them a breakfast pastry. Arby’s sells cherry turnovers (but these are 100% better). And Pepperidge Farm sells a frozen cherry turnovers (but these fresh cherry turnovers are 1000% better!)
This hand-held treat is perfect for serving a grab-and-go dessert that is easy to eat. Use sweet cherries for the sweetest flavor, and you’re going to love the cream cheese pie crust on this one too. Since they’re technically “pie,” you can serve them with ice cream if you’d like.
Ingredients Needed:
- Baking Basics: All purpose flour, white sugar, salt
- Butter: This is used to make the crust, so make sure you use COLD, unsalted butter.
- Cream Cheese: Use COLD cream cheese. It’s for the crust.
- Fresh Cherries: Fresh sweet cherries are the best! They’re in season in the middle of summer, so take advantage of that!
- Lemon: You’ll need finely grated lemon zest and freshly squeezed lemon juice.
- Cornstarch: Just a little cornstarch is used to assist with thickening the filling.
- Egg: This is used for making an egg wash to help seal the edges and brush the top before baking. It will give the crust a beautiful golden brown finish!
- Milk or Cream: This is combined with the egg to create the egg wash. Either milk or cream (or half and half) may be used.
- Coarse Sugar: I like to sprinkle sparkling white sugar on top of my cherry turnovers.
How to pit cherries:
When you make these Fresh Cherry Turnovers, you will a good cherry pitter to get rid of the pits inside the cherries in an efficient way! What a cool tool!! Slip the cherry into the slot, punch the metal gadget through and the pit slides right out. The cherry remains intact with a clean hole through the middle, and the plastic guard holds back the splattering cherry juice. As a result of this tool, our lives are happily filled with cherries.
How to make the cream cheese crust:
The crust is pretty much the easiest crust I’ve ever worked with (this is coming from someone who is severely crust-challenged). The whole thing just goes into the food processor and then is given a short chill in the fridge before rolling. I use the top of a plastic container to cut out the rounds for the turnovers. I then use a knife to lightly mark the halfway-mark of each circle.
How to make Cherry Filling for Fresh Cherry Turnovers:
The cherry mixture is also simple to make. You’ll combine some sugared fresh cherries with a lemony zest and cornstarch. I plop a couple of tablespoonfuls onto each turnover half. The edges of that same half are brushed with a milky egg-wash.
The tines of a fork are used to press the edges together to crimp and seal them.
The turnovers are chilled in the fridge before continuing, and then brushed with egg wash again and sprinkled with coarse sugar.
They’re baked until the flaky pastry is golden brown. Fresh and warm out of the oven, these Fresh Cherry Turnovers are fantastic little hand-pies. Slightly crunchy with a syrupy cherry filling tainted with lemon-flavor, we enjoy these plain. They’d also be fabulous with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a dollop of freshly whipped cream.
Recipe Tips
- Make sure the dough is cold when rolling.
- Change up the filling- use apple pie filling to make apple turnovers, blueberry pie filling to make blueberry turnovers or any flavor you’d like!
- Don’t over-fill your hand pies. A couple of tablespoons of fresh cherry pie filling in each turnover will be perfect.
- Be sure to seal the edges well or you’ll have some filling leakage along the seams while baking.
- Don’t forget to ventilate the tops of the turnovers by cutting a few slits in the top. This allows steam to escape during baking. It will help to prevent the turnovers from becoming soggy and give them a flaky crust too.
- Add a glaze to the top of your cherry turnovers instead of a sugar topping. Whisk together 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons milk and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract or almond extract. Drizzle on top of cooled turnovers.
- If you DO want to make the super easy shortcut version of cherry turnovers using puff pastry dough and canned cherry pie filling, here are the instructions. Thaw frozen puff pastry and cut it into squares. Place a spoonful or two of the canned cherry pie filling. Brush the edges of the pastry with egg white, fold the pastry over and crimp the edges with a fork. Bake on a baking sheet 20 to 25 minutes at 375 degrees F.
This is a turnover that also tastes amazing as leftovers eaten the next day.
To store, keep your cherry turnovers in an airtight container for 3 to 4 days.
You can also freeze prepped turnovers assembled through step 2 of assembling the turnovers below (add a few slits to the tops before freezing). Freeze them solid and then slip them into a large freezer baggie. You can freeze them for up to one month. There is no need to thaw the cherry turnovers before baking. Just continue with the baking instructions in the recipe card below, and you’ll have some freshly baked cherry turnovers to enjoy when the mood for these delicious hand pies strikes!
Fresh Cherry Turnovers
Ingredients
CREAM CHEESE CRUST:
- 1½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon granulated white sugar
- pinch of salt
- ½ cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
- 8 ounces cold cream cheese, cut into tablespoons
CHERRY FILLING:
- 2½ cups (¾ pound) pitted and halved fresh cherries
- 2 tablespoons granulated white sugar
- 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
- 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- ¼ teaspoon salt
EGG WASH:
- 1 large egg yolk
- 2 tablespoons milk or cream
Instructions
PREPARE THE CRUST:
- Place the flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor and process for 10 seconds to blend. Add the cold butter pieces and process for just a few seconds, until the mixture looks like crumbs. Add the cream cheese and pulse quickly about 25 times (or until a clump of dough has formed). Turn the clump of dough onto waxed paper and knead gently 2 to 3 times to bring dough together. Flatten into a 7-inch square. Wrap with plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes (or up to 2 days).
PREPARE THE FILLING:
- In a medium bowl, mix the cherries with the sugar, lemon zest and juice, cornstarch and salt; set aside until ready to fill the turnovers.
ROLL THE DOUGH:
- Place the dough on a lightly floured surface.. Roll into a square that is roughly 15×15. At this point, you can decide if you'd like to make round or square-shaped turnovers. If you make round (half-moon shape) turnovers, you can simply use the top of a 6-inch diameter bowl as your cutter. If you'd rather make square (triangle-shape) turnovers, use a chef's knife to trim a 15-inch square. Mark 5-inch increments along all sides of the dough & with the ruler as a guide, cut the dough into nine 5-inch squares. Re-roll scraps as necessary.
ASSEMBLE THE TURNOVERS:
- Line two rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
- Place the cut-out dough onto prepared baking sheets. On each square or circle, use a knife to lightly mark a line showing the halfway mark (make sure it's just a line indentation & not cut all the way through). Spoon a couple of tablespoonfuls of the cherries onto each "half"- keeping it on one side of the dividing line and leaving about a 1/4-inch border along the edge. Brush edges on the fruit side of the turnover with egg wash (egg & milk whisked together). Carefully fold the other side over the fruit and use the tines of a fork to press the edges together and seal them. Move baking sheets to refrigerator and chill for about 20 minutes. Adjust racks in oven to top and bottom thirds of the oven, and preheat oven to 375°F.
BAKE THE TURNOVERS:
- Brush the tops of the turnovers with egg wash and sprinkle with coarse sugar. Use the tip of a paring knife to carefully cut three slits in the top of each turnover to allow steam to escape during baking. Bake turnovers on bottom and top third racks for 15 minutes. Then rotate the sheets and bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown. Transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely. Serve warm or at room temperature, with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
Notes
- *The dough may also be frozen. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in zip freezer bag for up to 2 months.
- *These will keep at room temperature in a covered container for 2 days. To re-crisp, heat in a 375 degree oven until warmed through. They’ll keep a little longer if wrapped airtight and refrigerated (about 5 days).
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I pitted, halved and froze leftover cherries last summer. Can I use those? Or should they be fresh?
I think they would be fine.
Do you use sweet or tart cherries for this? I would assume sweet since there’s not a lot of sugar in the recipe, but I just want to make sure.
Yes, sweet cherries will be perfect.
Can you freeze the uncooked and filled turnovers and cook them from frozen?
@Foodie in Berlin, Haven’t tried it, but since you can do pies like that, I’m assuming these would work too.
This looks so good!
I wonder how these would hold up in the freezer? If this crust is as simple and yummy as it looks… I could have handy pies of whatever fruits are abundant in the freezer, ready to pop into DH’s lunch.
How Betty Crocker would I be?
Thanks for sharing! I made these tonight – they are pretty good! I think if I make them again I’ll add more sugar to the pastry (or just have them with ice cream) to increase the sweetness factor! Great way to use up cherries!
I tried this recipe and it is just amazing! Thanks so much for sharing so many wonderful recipes with the world!