Empanada Gallega Feast or Failure?

Okay so for starters I LOVE empanadas, the Cuban kind that I have had in the past, pastelitos. Flaky deliciously filled; so I was very excited about this months Daring Bakers challenge...
 
Blog checkin lines: Patri of the blog, Asi Son Los Cosas, was our September 2012 Daring Bakers’ hostess and she decided to tempt us with one of her family’s favorite recipes for Empanadas! We were given two dough recipes to choose from and encouraged to fill our Empanadas as creatively as we wished!

Now I gave this a single try so that means that I realize that I could have had a different experience had I tried a second time, but I did not. I was actually more worried about running out of time this month. We were suppose to be going to New Orleans this week, that fell through with recent storm. In addition to possible traveling work has been incredibly stressful this month and so my sleep has been highly necessary.

I wanted to try some of the more exotic fillings that Patri had suggested on the challenge but I stuck with a less exotic one of ham and cheese, now I did stick with Spanish cheese and used Manchego because I LOVE it. Anyway you can find Patri's recipes here, who knows maybe one day very soon I will try the salt cod or tuna version.

So the dough was a beautiful dough, which I used my Kitchen Aid mixer and dough hook to make. I really think that had I worked the dough with my hand I would have actually had a softer dough. For me I felt like the dough was somewhat tough and it was very crisp when it was baked. I do not know if that is how it is suppose to be or not. I would have preferred a more delicate dough.

So the night we had the empanada gallega I made a wonderful salad to go along with the empanada, Ashley had two pieces of empanada because his hunger was not satisfied from the first piece. I making this again though with some modifications, in addition to trying one of the other fillings, if I do a ham and cheese version again I will add a lot more ham and a lot more cheese, possibly something not as fancy as Manchego. Here are some photos.

 As you can see it looks like it baked well, however the filling is a bit thin.

 

 

While the experiment was fun and it tasted okay I feel like I failed the experiment in the fact that I was not thrilled with the results. I guess that is what part of this process is, success and failure, learning things I would do differently. I know I at least enjoyed the time in my kitchen, hope you will enjoy yours a bit more. Thanks for reading!