I really wanted to make Taste of Home’s Trick-or-Treat Turnovers but my plans were immediately derailed because I could not find a tin of flaky biscuits. I did not give up! Instead? I did some creative problem solving and came up with these adorable little guys to put through my test kitchen.
I cooked up some ground beef with red onion and garlic. Then I added some smoked paprika. I also added a couple of swishes of Worcestershire sauce to help deepen the colour and the flavour of the beef:
I added a tablespoon of mustard and some cubed old cheddar until the cheese melted. Then I let everything cool down.
Roll out one sheet of puff pastry dough on a floured board. You can go pretty thin because we are layering here and we do not want to waste anything. Cut out some pumpkin shapes with a pumpkin cookie cutter. On half of them add the cooled beef. On the other half with a sharp knife cut out jack-o-lantern faces. With a pastry brush, brush an egg wash (mixture of egg and water) along the rim of the bottom half containing the beef. Top with the jack-o-lantern face and press edges to bring it together.
So cute!!! Now I should have put some of the egg wash on top for a golden finish but my back was killing at this point so I totally forgot. I put them on a parchment-lined baking sheet in a 350F oven until the pastry was cooked, around 10-15 minutes. I forgot to put the timer on, again because of my back pain. So I just kept an eye on them until they were ready.
Now these guys are so totally adorable! The flavour is pretty good but they are a little dry so I would suggest having a dipper for this one.
This was a tad time consuming and I would not consider this recipe to be easy like some of the others I have made. This recipe is for the kind of person who loves putting detail into every element of her Halloween party, who wants some visual bang for her proverbial buck. Me? I love these little guys but it was too much work for me. Still, OMG, they are just too cute!
Suzie,
These guys are adorable. I may have to make them for my daughter’s Halloween party coming up. I hope that your back feels better soon. -Tien
They are too cute for words! And your photographs of them are magnificent. They’d be nice with a fruit filling too like raisins or mince — Halloween eccles cakes!
These are seriously cute!
Wow I am impressed everytime I come here; You are talented in that kitchen; I can tell you eujoy it.
Those are soo cute! My eleven year old will get a kick out of these, can’t wait to try them.
Absolutely brilliant, so unusual to see a savoury treat for Halloween.
Susie, your little guys are so cute!
Perfect appetizers for a Halloween party.
I absolutely adore these, the kids would just love them. I think this would make a wonderful treat pre trick-or-treating to fill their bellies and give them lots of enery for candy collecting. You cannot go wrong with the ground beef, it’s almost like little pumpkin shaped meat pies, very hearty.
Love how you think of creative ways to mesh Halloween and food.