Pop-Tarts. Crazy good.

Did you know that there's a wiki dedicated entirely to Pop Tarts? The internet is ridiculous.

Here are some of the things I learned from the Pop Tart wiki:

• There are more than 85 different flavors of Pop Tart. I had no idea that high-fructose corn syrup could be manipulated in so many ways.
• The newest flavor is Frosted Rainbow Cookie Sandwich. It was released on Tuesday.
• There are a number of perplexing discontinued flavors, many of which I assume were discontinued because no one knew what they were supposed to taste like. They include: Hello Kitty Meowberry, Disney Princess Jewelberry, Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary, Wild Magic Burst, and Pirates of the Caribbean Treasure Map. 
• Pop Tarts have some of the most disturbing commercials. They reel you in with cute minimalist animation and giggly voice actors, and then BAM you're suddenly smiling about cannibalism. Evidence:

Clearly, there is something wrong with the commercial Pop Tart industry.

So I decided to make my own pop-tarts. Non-cannibalistic ones. With a hyphen, because that makes more sense.

I found my recipes at Brown-Eyed Baker and From Scratch, two blogs that I have just discovered and will likely be perusing often for future baking endeavors.

Pastry Crust

For the crust, I used Brown Eyed Baker's recipe:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks, or 8 ounces) unsalted butter, cold and cubed
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk (I used almond milk, because it was what I had in my fridge.)


Directions, quoted directly from her blog:
"Whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt. Using your fingers or a pastry blender, work in the butter until it is the size of peas and the mixture holds together when you squeeze it. Whisk together the egg and milk and add to the dough. Mix together with a fork until everything is evenly moistened. Knead briefly on a floured surface, if necessary, until the dough comes together."

I don't have a pastry blender.  I used my fingers.

This is the dough after I mixed it with my bare hands.

I think it worked out alright.

After the dough was made, I split it in half.  I refrigerated it overnight, but it's not necessary to do so (so says the recipe).  This morning I took out the dough and let it thaw for about fifteen minutes.  Then came the fun part.

My first lesson learned during this baking experience:  If there are specific measurements for cutting a crust, they're probably there for a reason. I was supposed to roll out the dough to a 9 1/2 by 12 1/2 inch rectangle, cut the edges straight, then cut the dough into nine 3 by 4 rectangles.

Well, I guessed for the first part. And then I decided I wanted mini pop-tarts, because they're cuter and fewer calories than big pop-tarts, so I cut it into 12 (unequal) rectangles, as you can see.

My 12 uneven rectangles.

No big deal, right? 

I'll get back to you on that.

First, let's take a break from the crust for the filling.  I used the cinnamon filling from Brown-Eyed Baker and the pumpkin filling from From Scratch. (The former also has a recipe for fruit filling.)

Cinnamon Filling

½ cup light brown sugar
1½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 teaspoons all-purpose flour

Pumpkin Filling

3/4 cup canned pumpkin

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 large egg

 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

 1/8 teaspoon cloves

 1/8 teaspoon all spice

Both are just mixed together and then spooned onto a pastry sqaure (about a tablespoon per square, maybe a little less with the smaller sqaures).  I actually only made half the recipe for the cinnamon filling, and had leftover of both.  

Cinnamon and pumpkin fillings

Then I ran into my roadblock. The next step is rolling and cutting the second half of the dough. For the top layer.  Which should match the bottom layer.

Which I did not measure.

I ended up taking measurements from one point of my rolling pin to another to guess the right lengths.

Then I matched the tops to the wrong bottoms.

Fortunately, dough is pretty pliable.  I made it work, and got all of the filling covered.  Okay, most of the filling.  I used a fork to create grooves on the edges of the pop-tarts and poked holes in the tops.  Then they went back into the fridge for another half hour.

Into the fridge!

While they were in the fridge, I preheated the oven to 350 degrees and made the cream cheese glaze from From Scratch.

Cream Cheese Glaze

1/3 cup softened cream cheese

2-3 tablespoons cream or milk (again, I used almond milk out of necessity)

3-4 tablespoons powdered sugar

I whipped all of that together and set it aside.

The recipe says to bake them for 25-30 minutes, but I think I had a little too much filling, so it took closer to 35 or 40.

Then I set them on my makeshift cooling rack (actually the rack from my microwave set up over the sink) and drizzled them with the cream cheese glaze.  My drizzling skills leave something to be desired, but the end result is the same - deliciousness!

By the time it was all finished, it was almost noon.  So I had a pop-tart and coffee for lunch!

This is what happens when I put my camera on the table and set a 2 second delay.