Guest Post of Homemade Pop Tarts from The Sophisticated Gourmet

A week or two ago, I received a message from Jennifer, asking if I would like to write a guest post for her site. Of course I wasn’t as wary as I would be if some random person would have asked me! I actually wasn’t wary at all. I immediately accepted her offer and began thinking about what recipe that I’d share. After some brainstorming, I immediately thought of pop tarts.

Why pop tarts? Well, isn’t it fun to re-create healthier versions of foods that contain a ton of unpronounceable artificial ingredients that most people have never heard of before? Sure it is! Pop tarts are favored by many kids, teens, and adults across the country, and when re-created, this breakfast snack tastes much better than the cardboard-y brand named one’s.



A basic pate brisee recipe (pie dough recipe), organic jam (or organic preserves), and a drizzle of icing makes this treat all worth while. Moms, the best thing about making pop tarts from scratch is that you know what you’re giving to your children. There's no artificial ingredients, and you control what goes in these pop tarts.

For this recipe, I used one of my favorite go-to pate brisee recipes which I happened to memorize. Call me obsessed, but the recipe is awesome! It results in a flaky, yet shortbread cookie like dough, which I like. By no means am I saying that this should be your only go-to recipe, as there are many wonderful pie dough recipes out there.

Pop Tart Recipe Makes 5 pop tarts If you decide that you’d want more than five pop tarts, simply double the recipe below and make sure that the pie dough (pate brisee) is divided evenly, as you’ll need to roll both of them out separately.

Ingredients:
Pop tarts: -
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (Using regular APF is also fine)
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, just softened, cut in half-inch pieces
3 1/2 tablespoons chilled water
Jam / Preserves
* I used organic raspberry preserves, but strawberry, blueberry, and other flavors are sure to work. OR if you are obsessed with nutella, you can fill the pop tarts with that, instead. - Milk

Icing:
¼ cup powdered sugar
About 1tblspn Milk
¼ tspn Vanilla extract, almond extract, or any other extracts

Preparation:
1. Sift flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl; add 2 tablespoons of the butter. Blend in a mixer until the dough resembles coarse cornmeal or blend with two hands / pastry blender. Add the rest of the butter; mix everything until the biggest pieces look like large sized peas.

2. Slowly add in water, stir, then slowly add in more until the dough just holds together. Toss with hands, letting it fall through your fingers, until it’s ropy with some dry patches. If dry patches predominate, add another tablespoon water. Keep tossing until you can roll the dough into a ball. Flatten into a 4-inch-round disk; refrigerate. After at least 30 minutes, remove; let soften so it’s malleable but still cold. Smooth cracks at edges. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out into a 10 X 12 inch rectangle. Cut the dough into 10 equal pieces. If you have scraps, you can re-roll the dough.

3. Once the dough has been evenly cut, place about 1 teaspoon to 1 ½ teaspoons of jam / preserves on five of the sliced dough pieces, being sure to leave at least 1 ½ cm of space all around.

4. Place the 5 empty dough pieces on top of the other, being sure not to squish down the preserves, or you’ll have a big mess on your hands. Close the edges together, by using the tines of a fork. If you’d rather have a more rustic look, don’t trim the edges of the unbaked pop tarts. If you’d rather have your pop tarts a little more presentable, simply trim the edges with a knife or pastry scraper.

5. Place the unbaked pop tarts on a parchement lined baking sheet. Using the fork, make even holes in each pop tart, making sure you don’t go through the second layer of dough. Brush each pop tart with milk and freeze for 20 minutes. While the pop tarts are freezing, preheat the oven to 400ºF.

6. After 20 minutes, place the tray of pop tarts in the center rack of the oven, and bake for 15 - 20 minutes, or until nicely browned.

7. As the pop tarts are baking, prepare the icing by placing ¼ of powdered sugar in a bowl with about ¼ teaspoon of vanilla extract (or your favorite extract) and 1 tablespoon of milk. Mix well and set aside. 8. Once the pop tarts are done baking, drizzle each with the icing, and enjoy!

-Kamran Siddiqi
Author of The Sophisticated Gourmet