Strawberry Basil Turnovers

Well, peeps, we’ve got a recipe here for strawberry basil turnovers from my book, The Vintage Baker, for your viewing and baking pleasure. I was inspired to share the recipe because I am joining in a day of strawberry blogging, as it were (to see all of the other amazing strawberry desserts on the intraweb today, check out this hashtag on instagram). Plus it is (almost) strawberry season here on the east coast and I am awfully fond of sweets involving strawberries, and I grew up eating Pepperidge Farm Raspberry Turnovers, and will forever have a soft spot when hand pies are involved.This particular recipe came about after seeing a variety of fruit filled pies in my collection of vintage recipe booklets (I collect the booklets, which were published from the late 1800s to the 1960s, and my cookbook includes over 50 recipes from my stash, that I have twisted and tweaked for the 21st century baker). The twists and tweaks here, are pretty obvious and in the form of basil and black pepper, if you weren’t sure, as those two ingredients did not make their way into any of the old-fashioned recipes I stumbled upon while writing my book.And basil and black pepper each couple beautifully with strawberries. I call for cooking the fruit before filling the flaky pastry, as I find it makes for a more flavorful filling and one that doesn’t leak quite as much as its non-cooked brethren. The pie dough is made in the food processer and as long as you are mindful about not over processing the dough, this makes for the tenderest of butter-based doughs. The photo below the recipe, FYI,  is from the book, and by Alice Gao – and I hope you love it (and the turnovers!) as much as I do.
[yumprint-recipe id=’137′]                                                                                                         Photo by Alice Gao for The Vintage Baker