pop tarts,home made by Shelley Hopkins

Perhaps one of the most unhealthy breakfast foods that I crave is pop tarts.  At least once a month I want those brown sugar bready treats, although usually I resist.  The calorie count is extremely high, the convenience food is expensive, and for a large family pop tarts are not an economical choice.  Even so, I still want them.

Browsing various blogs I came across a recipe for home made pop tarts.  Strange as it may be, I had never thought that a person in her own kitchen could create such a food, so I printed the recipe and quickly began cooking.  It turns out that the recipe is simply two homemade pie shells with jelly or cinnamon sugar placed between them.  The first time I made pop tarts I didn’t roll out the dough thin enough, but I still enjoyed their taste.  I filled half with strawberry jelly, and the other half with cinnamon sugar, my favorite.  The next week I took more time to roll out the dough, I filled most of them the same way and cooked.  I also filled a couple with cheese, pepperoni and mushrooms for a pizza snack. 

This is one of the most versatile recipes I have found, and every week that I cook it I plan to experiment with various fillings.  I have homemade apple butter in my pantry, fig butter, different jellies, and of course the left over cheese and veggie choices.  I am looking forward to trying different combinations.  The writer of the blog that I read also chose to freeze uncooked pop tarts for later breakfasts, but so far in my house these easy foods don’t last very long.  

Pop Tarts

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

2 sticks unsalted butter ( if you use salted butter leave out the tsp salt as they will be very salty)

4-5 Tbs ice water or more as needed

filling, fruit preserves, cinnamon sugar, apple butter, etc

Mix the flour, salt and sugar together in a bowl.  Cut up the butter into cubes and mix into the flour, using a pastry blender or your fingers.  Mix until mixture looks like course crumbs.  This is best if the butter is chilled.  Push the mixture to one side of the bowl and add 2 Tbs of water.  Slowly add all the dry flour on the side of the bowl to the wet flour, mixing and adding water as needed until a slightly sticky dough is formed.  Using your hands press dough together into two balls.  Place in refrigerator to chill while getting the pans ready for cooking.

Preheat oven to 375.  Line baking pans with parchment.  Dust the counter with flour, and dust the rolling pin.  Choose one ball of dough and roll out thin.  Cut into whatever shapes you want, realizing that you will need a matching top and bottom for each tart.  Place half of the cut out tarts on the parchment, and cover with the chosen filling, about one Tbs depending on the size of the pop tart.  Place the top tart dough over the bottom one and press together to seal.  Use a fork to seal completely.  Bake for about 15 – 20 minutes.  You can dust with powdered sugar or make a sugar glaze when you take them out of the oven. 

Glaze

1 cup Powdered sugar

1 – 3 Tbs Water or lemon juice.

Whisk together until mixture is like a glaze and pour over warm pop tart.

I have not done that yet, I like my pop tarts plain.  I made my tarts much smaller the second time but I think they would look good in triangles also.  Enjoy!

The pop tart in my picture is one of the pizza bites, a new favorite here.