Missing those delicious fruit flautas from Schwan’s? We recreated one of our favorite treats from childhood and made them dairy free! These are easy to make and don’t require a fryer.
With most of our recipes lately I haven’t been adding in personal stories, but I’m going to make an exception today since this recipe is inspired by one of my favorite childhood treats. We’re going to take a short trip down memory lane with our Fruit Flautas!
When I was a kid, we would occasionally get frozen foods from the Schwan’s truck that regularly came through our neighborhood. It was almost like the ice cream truck since we would get treats like drumstick cones and fudge pops (back when I could still have dairy).
One of my favorite treats to get from the Schwan’s truck was the fruit flautas!
Normally, Mexican flautas are made of a flour tortilla filled with shredded meat and then fried (they’re delicious by the way!). Taquitos are similar but made with corn tortillas, usually rolled smaller, and fried as well.
The version of flautas that Schwan’s sold were flour tortillas stuffed with apple or cherry pie filling and fried. We’d buy them frozen and then bake them in the oven.
So yummy, they are as delicious as they sound 🙂
Fruit flautas are obviously not traditional or authentic by any means, but they are one of my favorite childhood treats that I couldn’t help sharing since they’re so easy to make and fun to eat. Schwan’s no longer sells these, so I decided to make a *mostly* allergy friendly version to share.
You don’t even have to fry our version!
While these flautas are dairy free and nut free recipe, this isn’t a gluten free recipe since these are made with uncooked wheat tortillas.
I’ll have to find some good gluten free tortillas that I can use to try out with this recipe, so far I’ve not found any great gluten free tortillas that would work as good as the uncooked wheat ones for this recipe.
These fruit flautas are:
- Dairy free
- Peanut free
- Tree nut free
- Soy free (if using the brand of tortillas I recommend)
How to make easy fruit flautas
Homemade fruit flautas are super easy and nearly foolproof! You’ll only have worry about the filling coming out of the flautas (which usually only happens if they bake too long or too hot).
Here are the steps to make these flautas. The full recipe card is at the end of the post:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- For the street taco-size tortillas, place about 3 Tablespoons pie filling slightly off center in the tortilla, then roll the tortilla and place on the baking sheet.
- Don’t roll these too tightly or the filling will come out the ends when you cook them. You want the filling to stay away from the ends of the tortillas by about 1/2 an inch since the filling will spread as it cooks.
- Repeat until all the tortillas and pie filling are used up.
- Brush the tops of the flautas lightly with oil. Combine the cinnamon and sugar in a small cup, then sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the tops of the flautas.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the ends of the flautas are browned. If you bake these too long, the filling will squish out the ends, so try not to cook these longer than 12 minutes.
- Allow the fruit flautas to cool for about 10 minutes before eating (the filling is very hot right out of the oven!).
- These taste the best when they’re freshly made, but if you have leftovers, you can store them in an airtight container after they’re fully cooled for up to 2 days.
What other kinds of pie filling can I use in this recipe?
We used several different pie fillings in these fruit flautas: the original Schwan’s fillings of cherry and apple, and blueberry pie filling just for fun.
You can add any pie filling to the middle of these as long as it’s a thick pie filling that isn’t runny or thin, otherwise it won’t stay in the tortillas.
If you’d like to make these flautas lower in sugar, use a reduced sugar pie filling in these. We tried this recipe out with a reduced sugar pie filling that didn’t have artificial sweeteners in it, but I can’t remember the brand name and didn’t get photos of it.
If you’re making apple flautas, you might have to cut any large pieces of apple in the pie filling down to make them fit well in the tortillas. Our can of apple pie filling had a few big pieces we had to cut in half, but otherwise as long as we arranged the apple slices in the filling along the length of the flauta, it works good!
Can I use pre-cooked tortillas in this recipe?
I recommend using the uncooked flour tortillas in this recipe if possible since 1) they have a much better taste and texture than cooked packaged tortillas, and 2) the uncooked tortillas in general have fewer ingredients and are more allergy friendly than the pre-cooked ones.
If you can’t find uncooked tortillas and need to use cooked tortillas, you may have to cook the flautas for slightly less time than the uncooked tortillas. So just watch the cooking and make sure to remove them once they’re browned on the edges.
Can I cook these flautas in my air fryer?
I tried this recipe in my air fryer and the filling squished out of the tortillas (this didn’t happen as much when I cooked them in the oven).
If you want to try this recipe in your air fryer, I recommend trying to seal the edges by pressing a fork into the ends of the uncooked tortillas to close them, or use toothpicks to close the ends to keep the filling in.
Check out our other easy dessert recipes!
Easy Baked Fruit Flautas (Dairy Free)
Ingredients
- 10 street taco sized uncooked flour tortillas (we used TortillaLand brand)
- 1 can (21 ounces) pie filling of choice (we used the Duncan Hines Simply pie filling)
- 1 Tablespoon light tasting olive oil (or other light tasting oil)
- 1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
- ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- For the street taco-size tortillas, place about 3 Tablespoons pie filling slightly off center in the tortilla, then roll the tortilla and place on the baking sheet.
- Don't roll too tightly, you want the filling to stay away from the ends of the tortillas about 1/2 an inch since the filling will spread as it cooks. If you roll these too tightly, the filling will squish out the ends as they cook.
- Repeat until all the tortillas and pie filling are used up.
- Brush the tops of the flautas with oil. Combine the cinnamon and sugar in a small cup, then sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the tops of the flautas.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the ends of the flautas are browned. If you bake these too long, the filling will squish out the ends, so try not to cook these longer than 12 minutes.
- Allow the fruit flautas to cool for about 10 minutes before eating (the filling is very hot right out of the oven!).
- These taste the best when they're freshly made, but if you have leftovers, you can store them in an airtight container after they're fully cooled for up to 2 days.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Sarah Jane Parker is the founder, recipe creator, and photographer behind The Fit Cookie. She’s a food allergy mom and healthy living blogger based in Wyoming. Sarah is also an ACSM Certified Personal Trainer, ACE Certified Health Coach, Revolution Running certified running coach, and an ACE Certified Fitness Nutrition Specialist