Last Sunday I was invited to an early Thanksgiving Celebration, and I was asked to bring a pie. I made a pumpkin pie, using my usual pie crust recipe, which is amazing, but it makes enough crust for nearly 3 pies! I figured this was the perfect chance to try my hand at making Pop Tarts.
Now don’t pretend you don’t love them. I prefer the generic, Great Value ones, but I don’t buy them. I know they are terrible for you, and it’s food that I can’t turn into other things, so it doesn’t get put into the cart. But Son has had a few here and there, and he asks for them sometimes. When I came across a blog that made them, see here, I pinned it for later use. This week was later.
I started with my pie crust, which you can find at the top of my Chicken Pot Pie post, here. (I should probably make a separate post for the crust recipe, huh.)
We, because Mothers don’t get to do many things without help, rolled the dough out nice and thin, probably a little thinner than you would for a pie.
Then, I pulled out a ruler, and we cut 3″ x 5″ rectangles.
I carefully placed them onto a baking sheet, lined with parchment paper.
Here’s a tip. Before you go onto the next step, match the dough rectangles to others that match closely, and put the smaller piece on the bottom.
Then, we spread jelly onto the center of the dough rectangles, leaving room at the edges.
Another quick tip: dock your top pieces of dough before you place them on top of the bottoms. I brushed the edges with an egg wash, and then sealed them with a fork.
I then baked the tarts in a 425 degree oven for around 15 minutes, or until they were brown. A lot of my filling oozed out, which is why I suggest docking before topping, and putting those smaller pieces on bottom. But my pop tarts still looked good.
I let them cool on a rack while I tended to icing options. Since I used Grape jelly — I wanted to use black berry, but I didn’t have anything else — Son thought a peanut butter icing would be good. I made up a powdered sugar glaze mixing sugar and heavy cream, again, I was out of milk, and then I made a small bit of peanut butter glaze. Since I always believe in using an ugly treat for testing purposes, I iced half of the smallest tart with white, and half with peanut butter glaze.
We tasted both sides, until the tart was gone, just to make sure we were certain. I knew what I thought tasted best, but I didn’t want to influence Son. I asked him which we should use, and he said “The Cream.” The peanut butter glaze just didn’t work. It’s strange, but it was terrible.
Once the tarts were completely cooled, I iced them all, and let them sit. The icing never hardened, probably because I used cream, but it tasted like cinnamon roll icing.
We had them for breakfast, and they were a big hit.
Son even asked for a second!
___________________________________________________________________
Pop Tarts
Ingredients:
Pie Crust (Store bought, or mine found here. )
Jelly or Jam
Egg Wash
Powdered Sugar
Milk (or cream)
________________________________________________________
Preheat oven to 425
Roll out pie crust until a bit thinner than the 1/8 of an inch you’d use for pie crust.
Cut dough into equal rectangles, or any other shape you might fancy.
Spread jelly onto center of dough, leaving edges clear.
Dock(poke holes into) top pieces of dough with a fork.
Brush edges of bottom dough with egg wash.
Place top dough on top.
Crimp edges with fork to seal.
Bake until golden brown.
Cool tarts on rack until room temperature.
Mix icing by adding milk, a little at a time, to powdered sugar until it is the consistency of syrup.
Ice tarts.
Add Sprinkles if you want yours to look like the real deal. I didn’t have any; even Son noticed. It was a sad day.
(Disclaimer: You can not put these pop tarts into the toaster. The icing just won’t play nice with the heating elements.)
Enjoy!
Gettin' By 