Cherry Turnover Cookies

Saturday was the perfect day. Beautiful weather, nowhere to go, and our hands full of something homemade.

My mom calls them ‘fold-overs’ and she’s been making them for as long as I can remember. Hers always start out square and end up wrapped around apricots, but Steevenson and I broke tradition and stuffed our circles with cherries. (And, yes, we brought a plate full of the finished product over to the Poseys since we all know they love cherries now, too!) 😉

Making those cookies got me thinking about the good old days. Not the ones that are tied to the apricot fold-overs of my past, no, the ones that are unfolding now. The ones I’ll look back at fondly from the future. They already sparkle with the sound of my 7-year-old’s voice. Standing alongside him on his stepstool in the kitchen already feels like a gift; his watchful eyes learning how to make something good…his tiny hands folding dough around fruit.

Oh, sure, this season is challenging me in ways that I’m not used to, but isn’t that always the case when it comes to the present? And  doesn’t the present have a knack for changing  our picture of the past? A wise woman once said, “Looking back, we do not find what we left behind.”

So here’s to the good old days. The ones we haven’t met from a different perspective yet! 🙂

Those cherry cookies we made are all but gone (I think there’s a paper plate full of crumbs and corners around here somewhere), but the magic of making them together for the first time will always fill me up.

Hope your weekend was beautiful, too!

Layla

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Cherry (or Apricot) Turnover Cookies
from my Mom’s Kitchen

Dough recipe for about 3 dozen:

1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoons Allspice
3/4 cups softened butter
1/3 cups sour cream
1 egg yolk

Combine flour, sugar, and Allspice; cut in butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs. In a separate bowl, combine egg yolk and sour cream then blend them into the flour mixture.

Divide dough into two portions and form them into balls. Cover each with plastic wrap and chill several hours or overnight. (Keep chilled until ready to use.)

Roll out dough to 1/8″ thick on a floured surface. Cut into 2-inch squares or use the rim of a drinking glass or cookie cutter to cut out 2″ circles. Place dough shapes on an ungreased cookie sheet; top with desired pie filling and fold over. Bake in a 350-degree oven for 12 minutes, or until light brown. Cool.

Drizzle recipe:

1 cup sifted powdered sugar
2 tablespoons water or orange juice

Use a spoon to apply drizzle in a tight zig-zag motion over the cooled turnovers.