Homemade Pop Tarts Recipe! YUM!

Made using an all-butter crust and you can use shortening too, these are a bit flakier and less soft than the pop tarts I remember, but they've got a leg up in the delicious department--and who wouldn't be delighted to choose their own Pop Tart flavorings?



The sky's the limit with these babies--you could fill them with jam and top them with a thin icing with sprinkles for the traditional look and feel of the pop tart--or you could go straight for the fatty jugular, filling them with decadent dark chocolate and topping them with peanut butter icing.



 



Homemade Pop Tarts

Makes 6-8 tarts, maybe even more, depending on size.

For the Crust

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened and cut into cubes
3 tablespoons cold water
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract or even pure almond extract would be a good option
For the filling



Jam, Chocolate Cream, Butter Cream, Orange Marmalade, Marshmallow Fluff, Peanut Butter or whatever sounds good to you - about 1 heaping teaspoonful per pastry.



For the icing

1 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted
heavy cream, to thin - you can use milk just use whole milk for best flavor or if you want a bit less you can use lower fat milk
Procedure

Preheat oven to 450°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set to the side.
Combine flour and salt in a large bowl. Add butter and blend with a fork, pastry cutter, or your impeccably clean hands. Blend until the mixture is fairly coarse. Add the water and vanilla, bit by bit, gently mixing the dough after each addition, until the dough is cohesive enough to form a ball.
Place dough on a lightly floured surface and roll into a rectangle, about 1/8 inch thick. Cut out rectangles approximately the size of index cards (3x5 inches), or smaller if you prefer a more modest portion (I didn't). Make sure you have an even number of cutouts. I think that mine might have been a little thicker than 1/8 an inch, but I ended up with 12 rectangles (for 6 pastries).
On half of the rectangles, place a small spoonful of the jam of your choice in the center. You don't want it to be too thick or the top crust will mound on top of it.
Place the remaining rectangles of dough on top of the ones with jam. Crimp all four edges by hand or with a fork to ensure that your filling won't ooze out. I also poked the top of each with a fork, to vent them.
Place the tarts on your prepared baking sheet, and bake for 7 to 8 minutes, or until light golden on the edges. Remove from the oven and let them cool completely.
While the tarts cool, prepare your icing; make sure it is fairly thin but not so thin that it will just drip off. Once the pop tarts are cool, drizzle it on top. Garnish with sprinkles and other goodies whatever sounds good to you.
ENJOY!!! have fun and make some new pop tart flavors that no one has ever heard of!! Share with friends, family and pig out!!!



www.theculinarybutler.net