Small Batch Homemade Pop Tarts
A relatively quick recipe for homemade Pop Tarts.
Servings 3 tarts
Cost 5
Ingredients
Filling
- 3-4 tablespoons cold cherry preserves (or any other flavor)
- 1 drop almond extract
- 1 tablespoon dried cherries (optional) or other fruit
Dough
- 4 tablespoons butter, softened (I like Land o' Lakes salted) (56 grams)
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour plus a tablespoon (110 grams) plus more as needed
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 pinch salt or up to ¼ if using unsalted butter (See Note)
- 1 tablespoon sugar (12 grams)
- 2 tablespoons corn syrup (36 grams)
Icing and Sprinkles
- 2 teaspoons butter (8 grams)
- ⅔ cup powdered sugar (75 grams)
- 1 drop vanilla extract (clear if you have it) or almond
- 1-2 teaspoons warm water plus more as needed
- Sprinkles
Instructions
Filling
- In a small bowl, stir together the cold preserves, dried fruit and extract. Set aside. You can do this first, or hold off and do it later.
Dough
- In a mixing bowl, mash the softened butter with a heavy duty scraper.
- In another bowl, mix whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar until evenly blended. Add to the softened butter and stir until partially blended. It will be thick and dry at this point.
- Pour in the corn syrup and stir, mashing with the scraper, to make a soft, smooth dough. You may need to finish it off by hand because it will go from dry to wet pretty quickly.
Assembling and Baking
- Line a tray that you can fit in your refrigerator (or baking sheet) with a sheet of parchment.
- Press the dough into a 4 inch square, then dust both sides lightly with flour. Set it on a lightly floured pastry mat and roll into a rectangle that's about 8 x 9 ½ inches. This doesn't need to be a perfect rectangle because there will be lots of trimming. The dough should be about ⅛ of an inch thick.
- Using a ruler and a knife or pizza cutter, cut the rectangle into 6 rectangles that are about 4 by a little over 3 inches each. Just make one cut through the 8 inch side and 3 cuts through the 9 ½ inch side.
- Using a flat spatula, scoop up a rectangle of dough and transfer to the baking sheet. Repeat with two more, being careful not to mess up the rectangles too much.
- Spoon about a tablespoon of the filling into the center of each rectangle, leaving about ¾ of an inch perimeter. Working carefully, one tart at a time, lay a second rectangle over the filling. Use your index finger to seal in the filling and press down the edges. Try to make the edges about ¾ of an inch. They'll be much wider than a normal Pop Tart, but you are going to trim after baking.
- Put the shaped and filled pastries in the refrigerator for 30 minutes and preheat.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Transfer the parchment with the tarts to a baking tray. If you used a tray that would fit in the refrigerator and the oven, you can skip this.
- Bake on center rack at 350 degrees F for 16 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned and the centers appear set. Remove from the oven and use a pizza cutter to carefully trim the edges to make neat rectangles. Transfer the parchment with the tarts to a cool surface while you make the icing.
Icing
- Make the icing when you are ready to ice because it will harden. Melt the butter in a microwave-safe 2-cup measure or a small mixing bowl. Add the powdered sugar and stir until dry and crumbly, then add a tiny bit of clear vanilla. You can skip the vanilla or use almond. Icing will still be good.
- Begin adding warm water, starting with 1 teaspoon, and stirring until the icing is smooth and thick enough to spread. Alternatively, you can keep adding liquid until it's thin enough to drizzle, depending on your preference. Spread or drizzle over the pastries while they are still slightly warm or you can wait until they are cool. If you drizzle while warm, the icing will be shinier.
- Decorate with sprinkles before icing gets hard.
- Note about icing: For pink icing, you can stir in a very tiny bit of preserves or a bit of red gel color. For lemon icing, add ½ teaspoon lemon zest and use lemon juice for most or all of the warm water.
Notes
Feel free to use less salt. The recipe from Brave Tart which was the recipe I started with only used ¼ teaspoon of kosher salt for four times this much dough. I used ¼ teaspoon with unsalted butter and didn't find it too salty at all. I also used just a tiny pinch with salted butter and liked that as well. But if your are sensitive to salt you can use less.
For lemon flavored Pop Tart dough, add ½ teaspoon lemon zest and a few drops of lemon oil to the butter before adding the flour mixture. Also add about ½ teaspoon of poppy seeds. Yellow food coloring optional.