These Sweet Empanadas With Cherry Cheesecake Filling are a fun dessert empanada that uses canned biscuit dough. The dough is stuffed with sweet cherry cream cheese and then baked until light and puffy. An easy and fun bite sized party dessert!
Sweet Dessert Cherry Cheesecake Empanadas
This dessert empanadas recipe (or empanaditas aka mini empanadas) are a fun and delicious sweet bite sized treat friends and family will LOVE! I used Pillsbury’s flaky biscuits for my empanada dough. They make this recipe super quick since the dough is all ready for you! I mean biscuits stuffed with a cherry cheesecake filling?? Yess pleasse!
What are empanadas?
Empanadas are a type of baked or fried pasty stuffed with either a sweet or savory filling. It is a popular treat in many countries such as Mexico, Latin American, and Spain.
How do you make dessert empanadas?
Dessert empanadas are made by taking pastry dough, cutting it into small rounds and then filling the round with any sweet filling you choose. Then fold your empanadas in half sealing with your fingers or a fork.
For this sweet empanada recipe, I used canned cherries, cream cheese, vanilla extract and a little powdered sugar for the filling.
Other filling options:
You could add ANY fruit filling to the cream cheese mixture and they would be just as delicious! I recommend using canned pie filling since it is already thickened and sweetened. Some other filling ideas are:
- apple
- blueberry
- peach
- strawberry
- rhubarb
- pumpkin
- chocolate
I think it would be fun to do a mixture of a few fruit fillings and let guests choose!
Empanada Dough
For this recipe, I used Pillsbury’s canned flaky layers biscuit dough! I LOVE this product because the dough already come in perfectly shaped rounds so you don’t have to worry about rolling and cutting. Plus, the dough is so moist and flaky, it’s a win-win!
All you need to do is pull apart the biscuit layers, stuff the dough round and fold over the dough. Then brush with an egg wash and your empanadas are ready to bake!
If you’re looking to make your OWN homemade dough from scratch, here is a good recipe!
How to you cook empanadas?
You can cook your empanadas by either frying or baking them! Since these empanadas are made with a sweet dessert filling, I think frying them may cause the cream cheese filling to ooze out. Plus, it is not as healthy and more tedious.
So instead, I chose to BAKE my minis! Baked empanadas are healthier, easier to cook in batches and allows the filling to stay packed inside! I baked these at 350 degrees F for 12-15 minutes.
Serving Your Empanadas
I recommend serving your dessert empanadas WARM! They will need to cool for about 5 minutes but so worth the wait! You can sprinkle powdered sugar on top of your pastries or more sugar or cinnamon or whatever your heart pleases!
If you want to make these sweet empanadas ahead of time, I suggest waiting until the last minute to pop them in the oven. So what you will want to do is assemble them and then line them on a baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to bake!
How to store leftover empanadas:
Store any leftover empanadas in a sealed Tupperware container. They have the shelf-life of a danish so will last just 1-2 days at room temperature. If you refrigerate them, they can last up to a week. Freeze them and they will last up to 2 months.
Pin the photo below for later!
Here are some other fun bite sized desserts you may like!
Strawberries and Cream Phyllo Cups
Baked Churro Bites with Chocolate Sauce
Mini Chambord Cheesecakes With Cookie Crust
Sweet Empanadas With Cherry Cheesecake Filling
Sweet Empanadas With Cherry Cheesecake Filling
Ingredients
- 1 8 ct 16.3 oz Can Pillsbury Grands! Flaky Layers Original Biscuits
Cherry Cheesecake Filling
- 2/3 Cup Canned Cherry Pie Filling
- 7 oz. Cream Cheese
- 1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar
- 1 Tsp. Vanilla Extract
Egg Wash
- 1 Egg + 1 tbsp. milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Separate 8 biscuits. Take each biscuit and simply pull them apart (in HALF) giving you two biscuit rounds each. You should have 16 rounds. Lay them onto a baking sheet. (Greasing your baking sheet is not needed).
- Cream together your cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in a bowl or mixer.
- Add your cheesecake filling AND your cherry pie filling to two separate Ziploc sandwich bags. Snip off the corners of each so you have a hole about the size of a dime.
- Squeeze about a tablespoon of cheesecake filling in the center of each biscuit round. Then squeeze the same amount of cherry filling onto each over top of the cheesecake filling. You want to fill your empanadas up as MUCH as possible without spilling out!
- Carefully close your empanadas by folding them in half and pinching the ends together with your fingers. Use a fork and press around the edges again. This will help seal them better and make them look prettier!TIP* The dough stretches easily so to make folding these a bit easier, pick the filled dough up by both sides and let the weight of the filling sink and stretch the dough a bit before folding. If some filling spills out, that's okay. Just make sure to seal the edges well!
- Brush egg wash over each folded empanada and bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm!Optional* Sprinkle each with sugar crystals if you have for a pretty look an crunchy bite.
Nutrition
Love anything cheesecake and these sweet cherry empanadas have my heart. Definitely making them soon. Using biscuits they are easy to make. Pinning to save.
Thanks Jas!!
These Sweet Empanadas with Cherry Filling looks absolutely addicting!! Perfect easy treat for a large group or party! Love the flaky golden pastry crust, just delicious.
Thanks Chelsey! 🙂
OMG DROOLING!!!! Yum! These look delicious and so fun! Would be so cute to serve at a party! Can’t wait to try!