Hey all! How's it going out there? Here is Boxford, Massachusetts we just lost a Super Bowl in glorious fashion, and we are more than knee deep in snow but, it's all good! In the midst of the snowstorms and the lead up to the Super Bowl, I decided to do something I have wanted to do for years while putting a Valentine spin on it.
I have wanted to try to make homemade pop tarts for several years now and during that time I have pinned various recipes to my Recipe board on Pinterest. I think this goes back to my childhood but, I am not sure. It could just be that I like pop tarts, even though I haven't had one in years! I chose not to decorate my home for Valentine's Day this year. There was just too much going on for me to focus on the very short season of Valentine's Day. Instead, I decided to bake a Valentine treat. Full disclosure: I am not a baker of any sort but, when the whim hits me, I go for it! I wanted to share the experience with you!
The pop tart recipe I chose to try was this one by Tieghan Gerard. The funny thing was that it turns out I shared another of Tieghan's recipes a few years ago. I seem to love her culinary creations. You can look at this recipe for her stuffed shells if you like. It is my interpretation of that recipe. As I recall it was delicious!
This pop tart recipe has three separate parts to make. They are the filling, the crust and the frosting. You begin with the filling. Another full disclosure: this is a time-consuming recipe, at least it was for me. It took me several hours to finish. Perhaps if you are inclined to bake more often than I do, you might be able to finish the whole process much quicker. It is a fun process in any case.
The filling was very easy to make and does not take long. Also, it thickens up pretty quickly, too. A good thing about this recipe is that it uses ingredients that you might already have in your cupboard. Since I am not an avid baker I had to go to the store to get the cocoa powder. I am very happy that I now have it in my cupboard, however. You never know when you might need it, especially for a household that loves chocolate!
You heat up the filling ingredients on the stove and mix them together. See what a
yummy looking filling it makes!
The next step is to make the crust. I didn't think I had a food processor. I thought I had thrown away my old one in my recent move. I Googled to see if you could use a blender instead. It said you could but, to be honest, it did not work very well. I had to resort to old-fashioned hand mixing.
(My husband later found a (new) food processor in the cabinet. I guess from that bit of news you can tell how often I bake. Haha.)
The hand mixing worked fairly well but, I did have chunks of butter that did
not completely mix in. I was still pleased with how things were going.
I shaped the dough into a ball and started to roll it out. This is half of the dough
I made. I think you easily could have rolled out the whole piece but, I wasn't sure
and did it in sections.
I rolled out the dough and cut out the heart shapes. I ordered a 5" heart shaped cookie cutter from Amazon because I thought the one I already owned would not be big enough for the pop tarts. I was wrong. The pop tarts ended up being huge and I was only able to make a fraction of the amount of pop tarts the recipe was supposed to make.
In the end, I made seven heart pop tarts and carved out one rectangular one, as well.
Next, it was time to fill the pop tarts with the filling.
As you will see, if you reference the original recipe from Tieghan, you must brush beaten
egg on the edges of the shapes. This makes for a tight seal when you place the top
shape on the filled shape and seal it.
Next, you use a fork to seal the edges of the shapes. You can also see here where I hadn't totally mixed
the butter into the batter completely. This is why you should check the original recipe to see how a
real baker does it. I was simply doing this for fun and my own gratification :). After the baking process, the non-mixed butter did not seem to be a problem, though.
The final steps were to make the frosting, which was also easy, very much like making
frosting for a cake and frost the individual pop tarts. The recipe directions were perfect
all the way through the process.
I also embellished the pop tarts with nonpareils. I did not have the coarse salt used in the original recipe. I
also wanted it to stick with the theme of Valentine's Day.
I thought about how to package them up and make them pretty but, in the end
I simply put them in take-out containers and delivered some to my kids. The snow
had squelched my creative juices, I guess.
I got rave reviews from my husband, daughter and granddaughter. I'd say that
was a win for my little Valentine experiment.
I did save a heart-shaped pop tart for myself to enjoy.
All-in-all it was a day well spent. As I mentioned earlier, this recipe does take a while to make so,
give yourself lots to time to enjoy the process without feeling stressed :).
Here are my takeaways from this baking experience:
- I would have added more sugar to the crust, only because I have a large sweet tooth. You may not need to make that adjustment.
- I would have liked to have used a food processor :).
- I would certainly have used a smaller cookie cutter. These pop tarts were way too big.
- I would have filled the pop tarts with more filling. I was worried the filling would ooze out during baking. This was not a problem at all so, more filling would have been better.
- I would not have waited the suggested 10 minutes after frosting the tarts to sprinkle on the nonpareils. They did not stick well. The last ones I sprinkled immediately, and they were perfect and pretty!
Purely for your information, (I am not being compensated for handing out this information), this is the heart-shaped cookie cutter I purchased from Amazon:
Ann Clark Extra Large Heart Valentine Cookie Cutter 5"
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