Banana Turnovers - A (very) Random Recipe

For this month's Random Recipe Challenge, Dom at Belleau Kitchen paired us up with another blogger so we could each choose the other's recipe.  I was paired up with the lovely Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog fame who randomly chose Dr. Oetker's German Baking Today, a cookbook which has been lingering unused (and unloved) on my bookshelf for the last 6 years. This book was actually a wedding present from some family friends in Germany.  I have flicked through it on several occasions thinking I should make something from it but when it comes down to it I like my cakes to be a bit more ooh-la-la than oom-pah-pah. Choclette picked page 173 which led me to a recipe for Banana Turnovers in the in the 'cheese and oil cake mixture' (are you understanding me more on why this book just doesn't invite you in....) chapter. I do love the fact that this blog challenge does what it says on the tin - to me you can not get a more random recipe than this.  Now if I was looking at a cake menu Banana Turnovers would not be up there on my list of choices. But, I am the first to criticise those who pah pah food before they've even tried it so I was happy to give them a go.  


When I first read the recipe I was a bit stumped as to where I would find curd cheese, one of the ingredients (cheese and oil chapter remember!) as I know my local Sainsbury's doesn't sell it.  It was a lovely lady in Harrods foodhall (I don't have delusions of grandeur - I work right next to it) who told me that it is just kwark cheese or in otherwords fromage frais.  So it turns out my local Sainsbury's does sell it.  I had high hopes for this recipe as I made the dough (with my new non smoking hand mixer with dough attachment!) - it was soft and pillowly.  That's where the hopes ended.....  The recipe says it would made 9 turnovers - I managed 5 and a half but the first 3 were write offs.  I rolled the dough too thinly at first so they split a little when cooking. I left the dough a bit thicker on the last 2 and a half and they turned out significantly better.  The final result - well they didn't look as pretty as the ones in the book but the last batch were OK.  I just don't think I'm a fan of cooked banana really (too baby food) so that doesn't help but Mr CB's response was not even lukewarm. You know it isn't good when someone turnsdown your turnover.....


The Recipe


300g plain flour
3 tspns baking powder (the recipe called for 1 packet so this was a bit of a guess)
75g caster sugar
3 drops vanilla essence
pinch of salt
125g fromage frais
100ml milk
100ml cooking oil (I used rapeseed)


For the filling:
2 bananas
4 tspns apricot jam
4 tspns lemon juice


For the coating & topping:
1 egg beaten
flaked almonds


1. Preheat the oven to 180c, gas mark 4. Line a baking sheet with baking parchment.
2.  Sift together the flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Add all the other cake ingredients and mix together with a hand mixer using the dough hook.  Don't knead for too long as you don't want the mixture to go too sticky.  
3.  Place the dough on a floured surface and make it into a cylinder shape.  Roll it out into a square shape around 36cm x 36cm then cut it into 12cm squares.  
4.  Mix together the apricot jam and lemon juice and brush each square with this mixture, leaving the edges clear. Put a piece of banana diagonally onto the square and brush again with the apricot mixture.  Brushes the edges with the egg wash and then fold over and seal.  Brush the turnovers with more egg and sprinkle with almonds. 
5. Bake for about 15-20 minutes.