Pastéis de Banana
Banana Pastries Coated with Sugar and Cinnamon
Brazilian fried empanadas made with lard-based dough are called pastéis, here stuffed with bananas and sugar for a delicious dessert.

“Brazilian fried empanadas made with this lard-based dough are called pastéis (pronounced pahs-teys). The dough is supple and fries up blistery, crispy, and with a light and flaky texture, very much like that of egg roll dough. The dough itself can be made easily in a bowl, but you’ll need a little bit of time and patience to roll out the dough and to cut it into squares. In order to get crackly, blistery dough when fried, it must first be rolled out very thinly. The dough needs to rest before you roll it, so that the gluten in the flour can relax and allow it to stretch thinly; otherwise your squares will shrink into small, fat rectangles. If at first you find it hard to roll out the dough thinly, don’t worry; the pastéis will still be delicious. Once the dough is cut, you can layer it between sheets of parchment paper on a baking sheet and let it rest for 20 minutes (or refrigerate it for up to 2 hours) before filling and frying the pastéis. Always place the filling on the sticky side of the pastry (one side will be drier than the other) so that the edges will stick together and seal tightly. In a pinch, you can substitute this dough with egg roll wrappers, but you’ll need to moisten their edges with egg wash in order to make them stick.
These crispy pillows, stuffed with bananas and bejeweled with sugar, make a scrumptious dessert any day of the week. They’re sweet, but not too sweet. My neighbor Janine told me that her mother made these for her when she was a little girl. Like any fried dough, pastéis are good to eat all by themselves, but I love to serve them with a scoop of vanilla or dulce de leche ice cream. Bananas that are past their prime mash easily and work great in this recipe. The dough takes some time to master, but if you use egg roll wrappers instead, these are easy to whip together on the spur of the moment. However; the blistery texture of the pastéis dough makes them particularly crispy and flaky; thus, I find it’s worth spending the time making the dough yourself. Plus, frozen, uncooked pastéis can be fried to order whenever you’re craving them. For this reason, I make several batches of dough at a time. With a little planning, one afternoon in the kitchen can bring you innumerable moments of sweet bliss.” – Sandra A. Gutierrez
Click here to purchase your own Copy of Sandra A. Gutierrez’s cookbook Empanadas: The Hand-Held Pies of Latin America.
*Note: This dough cannot be frozen and is best used after resting for 20 minutes; once shaped, the empanadas can be frozen raw. Freeze them uncooked in a single layer; once solid, transfer them to freezer bags and keep them frozen for up to 3 months. Fry them without thawing (to prevent splatters) for 3 to 3 1⁄2 minutes, or until they are golden and crispy; roll them in the cinnamon-sugar and serve.
Serves 12
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