Homemade Cherry Turnovers

For a long time, I had thought it would be nice to try making some homemade pastry, but kept putting it off thinking it would be very difficult to make. I was glad that I finally gave it a try! It did take awhile to make, but it seemed worth the effort after seeing the results. 

 The turnovers turned out golden and flaky as I had hoped. 
And my brothers let me know that they tasted as good as the
 ones from the store. :)

Here is the recipe and instructions that I used:

How To Make Puff Pastry

Makes 1 large sheet of puff pastry, equal to store-bought pastry

What You Need

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus 1 tablespoon
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup ice water
8 ounces unsalted butter, cold

Equipment
Pastry scraper
Plastic wrap
French rolling pin

Instructions

1. Make the lean dough: Mix the flour with the salt, then turn out onto your work surface in a pile. Run your fingers down the center to create a trough. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of water into the trough. Quickly fluff the dough with your fingers, keeping your fingers loose and using a scooping motion. Gather the flour back in to a mound, create a trough, and add another tablespoon of water. Continue sprinkling and fluffing until the flour clumps together in large pieces and holds together when pressed.
2. Chill the dough: Press the dough into a square and wrap in plastic. It's fine if it looks a little shaggy and unkempt at this stage. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
3. Prepare the butter block: Cut the butter into a few large pieces and sprinkle with a teaspoon of flour. Begin pounding the butter with a French rolling pin to soften it, sprinkling flour on your rolling pin as needed. Pound the butter flat, then use a pastry scraper to gather it up again. Sprinkle with another teaspoon of flour, pound flat, and repeat. Add one more teaspoon of flour, then continue pounding and gathering, pounding and gathering, until the butter is very pliable and does not break when you fold it over on itself.
4. Chill the butter block: Once the butter is pliable, shape it into a 4-inch x 4-inch square, wrap in plastic, and chill 10 minutes (no longer).
5. Roll out the lean dough: Remove the dough from the fridge and roll out to a roughly 7-inch square.
6. Wrap the butter in the dough: Place the square of butter on top of the dough at a 90-degree angle to the dough. Fold the corners of the dough over the butter so they meet in the middle. Pinch to seal.
7. First turn: Flour the work surface lightly and flip the butter package over so the seams are down. Roll it out to a rectangle roughly 12 inches long by 6 inches wide. Fold the top third over the bottom third, and the bottom over the top third, like a letter
8. Second turn: Rotate the folded dough so it looks like a book about to be opened. Roll it out again into a rectangle 12 inches by 6 inches. Fold it again.
9. Chill for 30 minutes. Mark 2 divots in the edge of the dough to remind yourself that you've done two turns. Wrap the puff dough in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.
10. Do two more turns: Repeat rolling out and folding the dough two more times. The dough should feel much more smooth and pliable at this point. If you notice any butter popping up through the dough, pat it with a little flour.
11. Chill for 30 minutes: Mark 4 divots in the edge of the dough to remind yourself that you've done 4 turns. Wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.
12. Perform two final turns: Repeat rolling and folding the dough two more times for a total of six turns. By this point, the dough should feel completely smooth and be easy to roll out.
13. Chill for 1 hour or overnight: Wrap in plastic and chill for a final 60 minutes, or overnight.
14. Roll and cut the dough: When ready to bake, begin the oven preheating to 425°F. Roll out the puff pastry dough to between 1/4 and 1/8 inches thick. Use the dough as is to make a large tart, or cut the dough into whatever shapes you need. Transfer them to tart pans or baking sheets. If the dough feels very soft and warm at this point, chill for another 30 minutes before baking.
15. Bake for 10 minutes at 425°F.
16. Lower the oven temperature to 375°F and continue baking until dry, crisp, and deep golden-brown.
17. Cool completely: Baked puff pastry is at its crispiest best the same day it's made, but will keep quite well in airtight containers for a few days.

Jude 1:20-25

 

  But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And of some have compassion, making a difference: And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. 

Jude vs. 20-25

Food For the Inner Man – George Mueller

by George Mueller (1805-1898)

While I was staying at Nailsworth, it pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, irrespective of human instrumentality, as far as I know, the benefit of which I have not lost, though now…more than forty years have since passed away.

The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day, to have MY SOUL HAPPY IN THE LORD. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit.

Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as a habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed in the morning. Now I saw, that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart may be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, whilst meditating, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord. I began therefore, to meditate on the New Testament, from the beginning, early in the morning.

The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord’s blessing upon His precious Word, was to begin to meditate on the Word of God; searching, as it were, into every verse, to get blessings out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word; not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon; but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul.. The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less into prayer.

When thus I have been for awhile making confession, or intercession, or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others, as the Word may lead to it; but still continually keeping before me, that food for my own soul is the object of my meditation. The result of this is, that there is always a good deal of confession, invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart. Thus also the Lord is pleased to communicate unto me that which, very soon after, I have found to become food for other believers, though it was not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word that I gave myself to meditation, but for the profit of my own inner man.

The difference between my former practice and my present one is this. Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all the time. At all events I almost invariably began with prayer. But what was the result? I often spent a quarter of an hour, or even an hour on my knees, before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc.; and often after having suffered much from wandering of mind of the first ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, or even half an hour, I only then began really to pray.

I scarcely ever suffer now in this way. For my heart being nourished by the truth, being brought into experimental fellowship with God, I speak to my Father, and to my Friend (vile though I am, and unworthy of it!) about the things that He has brought before me in His precious Word.

It often now astonishes me that I did not sooner see this. In no book did I ever read about it. No public ministry ever brought the matter before me. No private intercourse with a brother stirred me up to this matter. And yet now, since God has taught me this point, it is a plain to me as anything that the first thing the child of God has to do morning by morning is to obtain food for his inner man.

As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time, except we take food, and as this is one of the first things we do in the morning, so it should be with the inner man. We should take food for that, as every one must allow. Now what is the food for the inner man: not prayer, but the Word of God: and here again not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts.

I dwell so particularly on this point because of the immense spiritual profit and refreshment I am conscious of having derived from it myself, and I affectionately and solemnly beseech all my fellow-believers to ponder this matter. By the blessing of God I ascribe to this mode the help and strength which I have had from God to pass in peace through deeper trials in various ways than I had ever had before; and after having now above forty years tried this way, I can most fully, in the fear of God, commend it. How different when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning, from what it is when, without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials and the temptations of the day come upon one! – George Mueller