HOME MADE POP TARTS
I MADE POP TARTS! Makes 6-8, mine are bigger and thicker than the originals, but still reckon on two per person ;-). Obviously these aren’t an everyday breakfast, but they’re a ‘what the hell why not’ breakfast…
Ingredients (makes 6-8).
200g flour
100g butter
5 tbsp cold water
6 tbsp jam
6 tbsp icing sugar (60g approx)
Another tbsp water
Sprinkles
First, make the pastry. Depending on how mobile you are/how well your hands and arms work, you can either melt the butter in a bowl in the microwave and mix it quickly into the flour to distribute evenly to form a breadcrumb mixture – but this will need to then go in the fridge for at least an hour to bring it back down to a workable temperature.
Or, cube the butter and rub it into the flour with your fingertips to form a fine breadcrumb consistency. This won’t need to be chilled as you haven’t heated the butter.
To make the pastry dough, add a tablespoon of water at a time and mix with a knife to combine until it just forms a dough. Flour your ledge and tip it out, halve it so you have a manageable amount to work with, and roll it out very thinly, about 2-3mm thin. I don’t have a rolling pin, so used my lemon juice bottle – as the song almost went, Any Bottle Will Do.
When the pastry is rolled out, cut into rectangles about 10cm x 15cm each. That’s a guess, by the way. Slightly bigger or slightly smaller is just fine too (in fact I want to make mini ones!!) Get as many rectangles as you can from your pastry, adding the cutoffs back to the rest of the pastry on the side.
Thinly spread jam on half of the rectangles, leaving a generous half inch space around the edges. Place a plain rectangle on top of a jammy one, and press together lightly. Trim the very edges with a sharp knife to neaten up.
Place very carefully on a pre-greased baking sheet. Repeat these steps until all of the pastry dough is used up.
Then bake in the centre of a preheated or fan oven at 180C for 12-15 minutes. Don’t worry if they feel slightly soft, they harden as they cool.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool for half an hour.
Make up the icing by mixing icing sugar and water in a small bowl, and spread on top of the cooled pop tart. Add sprinkles, leave to set, and enjoy!
They can be eaten cold, or warmed gently in the oven, or popped in the toaster briefly to warm through.
They will keep in an air tight container for 3 days, or can be frozen and cooked in the oven on a low heat to defrost and warm through.
Of course, you can make these any flavour you like… Next up, a tablespoon of cocoa powder in the pastry, and peanut butter inside… 🙂
Jack Monroe. Twitter: @MsJackMonroe
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/agirlcalledjack
Categories: BREAKFASTS, Recipes & Food, SNACKS & TREATS
Awesomesauce, next stop – Nutella! ^_^
Thankyou jack xx
These look fab. I wish my three were still young enough to appreciate them. They’d be brilliant for a sleepover
Was in my local Spar shop earlier and noticed ready meals in the freezer, all lined up with 300g showing, all in a line. Made me grin with recognition 🙂
Incidentally, I used that same 300g measure when I was portioning up some leftover casserole the other day into plastic boxes for the freezer, normally I would have done it by eye. It has never registered before because I don’t buy them.
I run my eye over the shelf and it had liver and onions, check, lasagna, check, shepherds pie, check, sweet and sour chicken, ooh, have we done that one?
We have but we haven’t blogged it yet 🙂 x
That’s simply brilliant Jack, almost wish I didn’t have diabetes, just for this! (Actually wish I didn’t have diabetes at all, but I’m sure you catch my drift lol)
They’re delicious without the icing, I did a few plain ones, so you could use reduced sugar or diabetic jam 🙂
Or just mushed up fruit for that organic feel? I’m no cook. I dunno.
Oh wow! I bet I can veganise these. I’ve never had the “real” version but yours looks nicer anyway. Nom nom nom.
Yep I think they would work with a vegan spread instead, I’d be interested to know if they did. 🙂
I always use a vegan spread as my son is dairy allergic. Vitalite or Pure Sunflower spread both work well in pastry 🙂
Although not as tasty and this version, some flavours of Poptarts are vegan if you ever want to try the originals 🙂
Poptarts are nutfree too..
Nutella it is! Thanks for the spoonie ‘rubbing in’ method Jack, really useful
Oh my, this is fabulous. I used to love pop tarts but given the scary ingredient list they don’t find their way into the house. But this is great. 🙂
Oooh yeah! Next Saturday’s brekkie then…
Haven’t had Pop Tarts since I went veggie 13 years ago. You are my new favourite person 🙂
Was just feeling a little peckish and then saw your blog in my emails..I’d completely forgotten I have pop tarts in the cupboard…..guess what I’m having for supper.
With regards the butter, and apologies if this has been mentioned before, but I’m to ill to cook so have been speed reading most blog entries in order not to get upset about what I can’t do, if you freeze your butter then take it out when needed and grate into the bowl it makes it easier to work the butter into the mixture and stops the pastry from getting too warm.
Fantastic! I always keep butter in the freezer, as I only buy it when it is on sale. Thanks! Also, will be trying this with other grains, will let you know how it goes.
I Love love love this blog!!!!
chocolate spread inside (aldi/lidle both do a big jar for about 79p) cocoa powder in the pastry (take away the amount in flour) touch of cocoa in the icing…..CHOCOLATE pop tarts!
you are, of course, a genius jack
Reblogged this on The life of me and commented:
These look fab, unhealthy but a weekend treat 🙂
I’m making some soon
#frugal
Ok, throughly impressed! And without all the additives of the original Pop Tarts…nice!
Lemon curd!
Won’t the icing drip into the toaster as you warm them up? What a great idea though – thank you.
J x
Hi love your recipes but not sure what flour to use as want to make these
Plain flour. SR would work but they’d rise a little.
Where were you when my boys were little and I hadn’t thought of this!! Drat, drat and triple drat …. Lol. I might just give it a go for me, but with Nutella inside 🙂
Never had pop tarts, the kids have asked but the ingredients list is too scary, but might try these for a treat for them. A birthday breakfast or Christmas Day if I’m organised enough to make them in advance ;-). Do the packet ones have icing? I thought they went in the toaster or grill, but would that work with icing?
The commercial ones have a very thin layer of very hard icing, and you toast them for a short time, and you pay attention or you learn to like the frosting a little, um, caramelised.
Even the unfrosted ones are so thin, and the filling so sugary, that they can get dangerously, mouth-injuringly overheated quite quickly. 30 seconds, tops. And cool about that long too, especially for children.
In the ” OldDays” when milk came in glass bottles, people used a clean empty milk bottle in lieu of a rolling pin for rolling out pastry. My Mum had a very old rolling pin that had long ago lost its little handles but still worked just fine. My favourite pudding was when Mum lined a pie plate with pastry and covered in with spoons of all the odds and ends of jam and lemon curd in the pantry and topped it with a criss-cross pastry lid. When it came out of the oven the jams had swirled into a rainbow/marbled effect. Wonderful!
That sounds beautiful
Just a (seasonal) thought – I normally make my (square) mince pies by a similar method – probably a bit thicker overall, and reheated under the grill or in a rayburn oven. Mince pie pop tarts, anyone??
And when I was a little girl a VERY long time ago, I always wanted to try rolling out pastry with one of those patterned lime cordial bottles (real glass then!) but my mother wouldn’t let me.
Mincemeat with cream cheese and orange zest would be even better – or mincemeat inside, heat and then spread with the cream cheese and orange zest…
If you have access to a bit of freezer space, these can be rolled and filled then frozen
unbaked.
You can then take out just one or two for a quick bake…keeps you from eating the lot ! A dusting with icing sugar when they are warm would add that extra bit of sweetness with out being overwhelming if you are worried about extra dietary sugar.
Not sure how lemon curd freezes..might separate.. but all the other fillings mention ed freeze well.
They are also good with thick apple puree or any pureed seasonal fruit. Keeps themcheap and you can control the sugar content.
An additional thought…for people with limited strength and energy lvls…or those with tiny blocks of time, this process can be broken into several steps.
Mix the pastry and wrap and chill…..next day or whenever…
Roll an cut the pieces..freeze them on a sheet pan then stack and wrap.
Take out what you need…thaw a bit them fill and bake.
This is also a good way to use just the tiniest bit of filling you might have on hand and eliminate waste..a small piece of very ripe fruit or the scrapings from a jar of jam etc.
One of my boys is always looking for poptarts but they are so expensive. Will definitely try these and the nutella suggestion would be a winner! Cheers Jack
I would love to make these but alas I cannot because we are a gluten free household……
You can probably make them with GF flour 🙂 I’ll look up a GF shortcrust pastry recipe, hang about… X
Quick look, GF shortcrust pastry is the same recipe as ordinary, so the only difference here would be to add GF flour instead of plain. GF recipes advise chilling the dough for 30 mins before rolling out too. Have fun! X
As a fellow gluten free household, Jack is definitely right about this. I make short crust pastry all the time using this recipe. One thing about GF pastry though, is that the longer you chill it, the better the outcome. The cooler it gets, the firmer it gets, so it’s less likely to fall apart 🙂
Not sure if this helps/is relevant, but I made these gluten-free poptarts a little while ago. Admittedly I did use a different pastry recipe (nothing against yours, Jack, it was just that I had some leftover from making a quiche and I couldn’t be bothered with jam tarts) and it worked fine (although the recipe I used for gluten free pastry actually benefits from being handled, which may have altered them a little?)
I just had to try these, made last night and ate for breakie this morning. Mine looked at bit fat and puffy so I will roll the pastry a bit thinner next time, because there will definAtely be a next time they are scrummy.
I’m now thinking of savoury-ish versions. Cinnamon pastry with a cinnamon cream cheese filling, or a cheese pastry with spinach/feta paste in the middle. Uh oh…
Made these last night with plum jam. Cheated on rubbing by using the food processor.
They went down so well I’m making them again now for breakfast tomorrow! Am going to try substituting some of the butter with peanut butter, and using chocolate spread in the middle…..or maybe lemon curd…….oooohh decisions!!!
Thank you Jack. x