Home Made Strawberry Pop Tarts

The lawyer and I are taking a long extended weekend getaway. Luckily a foodie friend of mine graciously accepted my invitation to take over my beloved Saturday spot. Joseph, a budding young chef from Singapore, blogs at the fantastic Quickies on the Dinner Table .



Denise Fletcher is his proud Mum and culinary tutor. I have no doubt that one day Joseph will be an amazing gourmet chef. How could he not with such an awesome teacher? Please check out the wonderful Quickies on the Dinner Table, where you can follow the work of Denise and her apprentice Joseph.





Without further windbaggage from me; I present?



Hi everyone! My name is Joseph, I?m 12 and my mum blogs at Quickies on the Dinner Table. When mum told me that her foodie buddie Lazaro from Lazaro Cooks! had invited me to do a post on his blog, I thought she was kidding, until she showed me the email. Then I thought it was really cool because Lazaro cooks like a restaurant chef and if he invited me for dinner or something, I would definitely go! So, thanks a lot Lazaro for inviting me today.





Mum and I talked about it and we decided that since the Fourth of July was around the corner, I should do some kind of American food. I thought about pizza but mum said it was from Italy. I said hamburger and she said Germany. We didn?t know for sure if hot dogs were American and we thought they were too simple to do a post about.





Then mum read about pop tart ice cream sandwiches on another foodie friend Rick?s blog and asked me if I remember eating pop tarts when I was younger. I did, but mum stopped buying them a long time ago, and I was really young the last time I ate one about 6 years ago, so I didn?t really think about them until she mentioned them.





We haven?t seen pop tarts in supermarkets here in Singapore for a long time though mum says we all loved them when she used to buy them for us. I actually forgot what they taste like so we decided we needed to make some. Mum based this recipe on her favourite scone recipe and decided to use store bought jam because she thought that making my own fruit filling might be too demanding for me since this was my first time making pop tarts.









I had mine with cold milk and I wanted more when they were gone. I asked mum to try hers with some of my milk but she made a face and had hers with coffee. I don?t think she drinks anything else. I hope you try making these pop tarts too but remember to use a bit more jam and seal them real tight so the jam doesn?t leak out. Thanks for reading my post ?





Home Made Strawberry Pop Tarts



300 g (3 cups) plain or all purpose flour

1 ½ level tsp baking powder

1 level tsp fine salt

1 level Tbsp sugar

75 g (1/2 cup) cold butter, cubed

1 large egg

70 ml (1/3 cup) cold milk



Filing and Icing



3 Tbsp high fruit content, low sugar strawberry jam

6 generous Tbsp icing or confectioner's sugar

3 tsp milk



? Preheat oven at 190 C (370 F)



? In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar and whisk until thoroughly combined.



? Add cubed butter to flour mixture and rub in until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.



? Lightly whisk together egg and 70 ml (1/3 cup) milk and add to the crumbly flour mixture. Stir mixture together with a fork until flour is moistened and mixture begans to come together. Using your hands, lightly push together mixture until a smooth dough forms. Don?t knead too much or pop tarts will be tough.



? Divide dough evenly into two. Roll out each portion into a rectangular strip about 3mm (1/8 in) thick, 40 cm (16 in) long and 12.5 cm (5 in) wide. Repeat with the other portion of dough



? Cut each strip into 6 smaller rectangles. You should have 12 small rectangles all together.



? Put a generous teaspoon of jam on alternate rectangles and repeat for the other strip of rectangles.



? Cover each jam filled rectangle with a bare rectangle.



? Using the fork, press down all on the four edges of each rectangle firmly, to seal in the jam. Prick each rectangle with the fork 5 or 6 times so the steam from the hot filling can escape. This will stop the rectangles splitting open during baking.



? Place rectangles on a lightly greased or parchment lined baking tray and bake for 10 - 12 minutes or until lightly golden. Remove from oven and cool on rack until cold.



? Sift icing (confectioner's) sugar into a large bowl and stir in the milk until you have a thick and smooth icing. Put rack with pop tarts over a tray and drizzle with the icing, using a teaspoon. Allow icing to set before serving.



Happy Fourth of July everyone!!