Homemade Pop-Tarts

Pop-tart-type pastries have become pretty popular, from the Ted’s Tart I had in D.C. last summer to the Lunch Box Tarts served in Toy Story Land at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. For about a year though, I’ve been making some SUPER easy ones that always get tons of compliments and look adorable. You do not need a recipe- just see how I do it!

• 

• 

I would love to someday nail down my own pie crust recipe. It’ll happen! But for now I just use off-brand store-bought. It’s fine, it’s delicious. You could def cut it into the more traditional rectangle shape, but I think the circles are cute. I’ve also done hearts, for Mother’s Day and for Galentine’s Day. Just make sure your shapes are big enough! I used a raspberry amaretto jam that I got at a farmer’s market. Use less jam than you think you need! Any more than this amount and you’re likely risking a little jam squirting out of the sides.

• 

• 

To complete the lil pastries/mini pies/pop-tarts, ya need water and a fork! Rubbing water along the dough from where the jam stops to the edge of the pastry gets the dough sticky and ready to seal. Set a plain dough cutout on top, and seal the edges with a fork.

I’d normally use an egg wash for this step, but I didn’t have an egg so I just used melted butter. You’ve gotta brush the pastries with something to get them golden and beautiful. I think an egg wash (an egg whisked with a splash of water) works best, but melted butter will do in a pinch.

Here are the finished toasty beauties! I baked them at 400F for about 9 minutes (I started with 5 minutes, and then checked them after every additional 2). Some were left without icing because I guess SOME PEOPLE prefer their pastries that way. I don’t get it!!

• 

• 

But for most of them, I thought an icing using this pistachio syrup (a staple of my coffee bar) would compliment the raspberry amaretto flavors in the jam. I feel like once you understand frosting, it’s pretty easy to just throw one together without a recipe. I dumped my leftover melted butter (probably about a tablespoon) into a bowl with two pumps of the flavor syrup, and whisked in a good amount of powdered sugar (if I had to guess, it was probably a third of a cup) and a splash of water. A regular thin glaze is easiest to make (just a lot of powdered sugar and a little bit of milk or water) and you can throw in a small bit of vanilla or almond or any other extract or syrup you have on hand. I’ve also topped these with buttercream. Today I wanted something kind of between a buttercream and a glaze, and I already had some melted butter, so this is the icing we ended up with!

Here’s a completed beautiful, delicious pastry. You can make these with any jam or spread and any icing or no icing. They’re so easy and always so tasty!! I’ve done pumpkin butter with vanilla glaze, tart cherry with buttercream, apple cinnamon with cream cheese frosting, and probably others. You should totally try them!

If you wanna read more from me on at-home goodness, check out this post here! Or this post here!