A Spur of the Moment, Pop Tart Making, Kinda Night

Sunday evening I was flipping through a back issue of Better Homes and Gardens. I was comfortable snuggled up next to my honey, enjoying a relaxing moment when I came across a recipe for homemade pop tarts.  I showed it to Joel and told him I wanted to make those for him and the boys some time.  His response, “Why not make them right now?”  (Isn’t that just like a man!)  So, I told him I would make them if he helped me! :) 

Out to the kitchen I went to start the first leg of the treat making.

The recipe in the magazine called for store bought pie crust. Well, if you know me at all, that just isn’t going to cut it.  I whipped out my favorite pie crust recipe.  Let me tell you!  I found this recipe two years ago in a  Country Living magazine.  It is the BEST! So flaky and flavorful.  My man is a pie conusour.  You can’t pull an okay crust on him. His grandma was one of the best pie makers ever, he grew up eating her pies…a lot!  Not many people can live up to her amazing pie making status, but when I make this crust I get rave reviews from him.

Katie’s Buttery Piecrust

2  1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

2 Tablespoons sugar

1 cup unsalted butter, chilled

6-9 Tablespoons cold water

Combine first 4 ingredients in a bowl. Cut butter into small pieces. Add to flour mixture and toss to coat. Using a fork or pastry blender work butter into flour until the mixture resembles coarse meal.  Add 3 Tablespoons of water and toss well with a fork. Continue adding water until dough holds together.  Chill one hour. 

***Note for the pop tarts I upped the sugar a bit.  For regular pie crust use 1 Tablespoon. Also I have notice that this makes more than two 9-inch pie crusts.  I get more like 3…which to me is a bonus. I usually bake the third one then stick it in the freezer for later use.

 

Now since I was in a hurry I didn’t let it chill. It was already 7:30 and I wasn’t up for dilly dallying over pie crust all night.

 

Homemade Pop Tarts

I separated the pie crust into two pieces. Rolled one out nice and thin and cut 3 inch squares out of it.  Joel took the squares placed them on a greased cookie sheet and then put homemade Strawberry Jam and Blackberry Jam alternately in the centers.  We didn’t measure this just plopped it in the centers till it looked good. 

We found that to make the tops stick better you really needed to wet the dough.  So Joel wet the edges of the bottom piece of dough with water and then put the top piece of dough in place. (Without the water the tops were not sealing to the bottoms).  Taking a fork he then sealed each pop tart all the way around.

If you want these to be gorgeous and picture perfect do this step yourself!  Ours ended up looking like…well, like a man who just wants to get them in the oven and baked so he can eat them, did them. ;)

The recipe called for a 400 degree oven with a bake time of 9 minutes.  We did the 400 degree oven, but the 9 minutes was way off for us.  I honestly don’t know how long we baked them because we just kept sticking them in until they looked done!  I’m going to guess 20-25 minutes, but don’t hold me to that.

When they are lightly golden take them out of the oven and let them set on the pans for 5 minutes, then remove to wire racks.  While they are cooling whip up a small batch of frosting. I would share my recipe with you, but the only amount I know that I used, was 2 Tablespoons of butter.  I never measure when I am making frosting.  So just grab one of your favorite recipes and use that.

Ideally you should let them cool, but we are an “anxious to try” type group around here.  We slathered on a bit on frosting and then decorated with colored sugar. 

OH MY!

These were fantastic!

 

You have got to try this out those boxed thingys have nothing on these babies!