Forum

I have a recipe for empanadas I'd like to make, but the recipe if for frying them. I'm not a fan of messing with all that oil and was wondering if it would be ok to bake them instead. The empanada dough in my recipe has flour, masa harina, baking powder, salt, lard (maybe I'll use butter or shortening instead), water, and eggs. Do you think baking the empanadas would work out ok?

I'll admit to only ever making empanadas once and I baked them.  It worked well.

I have The food of Argentina (by Ross Dobson & Rachel Tolosa Paz, aka Rachel Fuller) and the The South American Table (by Maria Baez Kijac). Both cookbooks give 2 empanada dough recipes, for frying and baking empanadas. Both methods are traditional -- but I think the dough needs to be specific to the cooking method.

https://www.laylita.com/...pes/all-about-empanadas/

I suspect it may be the addition of baking powder making the dough for frying.  I have not seen dough recipe for baking with baking powder.  But, other ingredient proportions may also be affected. The above site is really good.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I looked up about the baking powder, and although it was more often used for fried empanadas, I found it in both fried and baked. From what I read, the difference is that it puffs up the dough so that it creats like an air bubble inside the empanada. I also saw that butter should be used if baked, and shortening or lard when fried, but I'm not sure why since either can be used in pie dough. It looks like with this information, I should be able to alter the recipe enough to suit being baked.