Homemade Pop Tarts

Homemade Pop-tarts

Homemade Pop Tarts

ingredients

• Pie crusts - (homemade or refrigerated), we used 3 refrigerated ones for our Valentine's pop tarts, use more pie crusts if you want more pop tarts or nice large ones
• Your favorite jam

glaze:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Original recipe calls for sugar sprinkles, on top of the glaze, we left them off - would look pretty though

Homemade Pop-tarts

directions

• Preheat the oven to 400°F.
• Roll out pie crusts onto a lightly floured surface (we used no flour, and just laid it out on our counter with no sticking, if you have marble slab, that would be great) and cut it into 3 x 5 inch rectangles. Easiest to measure with ruler and then cut with a sewing rotary cutter, otherwise you might find that your top crust is smaller than the bottom crust. Not that it happened to 3 of my pop tarts. No, that would never happen to me. (grins) We also made 5 x 5 inch square ones, same baking time, just more to enjoy. ;o)
• Spoon 2-4 teaspoons of your favorite jam onto one of the rectangles (depending on size of pop tart), this will be the bottom, leaving about 1/4 inch of blank space around the edge. Use a cookie cutter or paring knife to cut different shapes out of the second rectangle, this will be the top. Then place the top over the bottom piece and seal the edges together with the tines of a fork. Place on baking sheet (make your life easier, use a silicone liner), bake for 8 to 11 minutes, until lightly golden, remove to wire rack and allow to start cooling.
• While the pop tarts are baking make the glaze. In a small bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, milk and vanilla. Drizzle glaze over slightly warm pop tarts. FYI: Use a light hand when drizzling glaze over pop tarts, or leave off altogether, they are delicious without. If you do use it, it makes the pop tarts really sweet between powdered sugar and the jam.

I made strawberry Valentine's pop tarts. The crust is super flaky and there is absolutely no comparison to pop tarts from a store. Easy and fun to make, and they bring a smile then a grin when they are bitten into. Don't want to make any cutouts, then don't, just more flaky delicious crust to eat! But if you do, then by all means, go ahead and add the cutouts to the top crust, before you put it on the bottom crust, and lightly press down the edges of cutouts with fork tines.

Guava jelly would be fantastic on these! Have apricot jam, go for it. Possibilities are endless, use your imagination and have fun with it! Using a paring knife instead of cookie cutters (or scrap-booking cutters!) will give a more homemade feel as well as just being fun. They aren't meant to be perfect looking, but they are perfect tasting! Oh, and just an FYI, when baking with cutouts, your jam will bubble and boil, and sometimes even overflow, that is normal. Just remember to have parchment or even better, a silicone liner underneath.

I wish I could take credit for this idea and recipe, but I cannot, I am so glad I found it though! I was searching online for something else, and came across the recipe, and just knew I had to try it. Original found at:


http://blogs.babble.com/family-kitchen/2011/01/24/homemade-valentines-pop-tarts-for-your-sweetheart/