Roopa
I woke up to an earthquake and the Canadian border officially closing in the midst of a pandemic. It’s really reinforced that death by pastry is the way to go.
Pop tarts were one of my favourite treats growing up. I tried them again as an adult and realized they mostly taste like processed artifical-ness, so I decided to try a home made version. I was expecting these to be good, but I was unprepared for how amazing they were! I wanted them to be thematically appropriate (for St. Paddy’s Day) but I also wanted them to be strawberry flavoured, so I settled for green sprinkles.
I got the recipe from Brown Eyed Baker and halved it; I’m quarantined in my home and can’t pawn baked goods off on my coworkers, so I definitely don’t need a full batch of anything! The only thing I’d really do differently is stick to my guns and chill the dough overnight. It was a bit challenging to work with, and I think pastry dough benefits from chilling overnight.
PASTRY DOUGH
INGREDIENTS
- 120 g pastry flour
- 6 g (1/2 tbsp) granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 114 g (1 stick) cold butter
- 35 g (1/2) egg
- 15 g (1 tbsp) milk
DIRECTIONS
- In a large bowl, crumble together the flour, sugar, salt, and cold butter with your hands until the butter forms pea sized chunks.
- Add the egg and milk and mix everything together until it forms a (sticky) ball.
- Wrap the dough and chill overnight.
Notes:
- I cracked an egg, mixed it together, and used half of it in the dough. The other half was used to glue the pop tart halves together and as an egg wash.
- I only chilled the dough for an hour, but I would do it for at least a few hours (or ideally overnight) next time.
STRAWBERRY FILLING
Make this shortly before you are going to start rolling out the dough.
INGREDIENTS
- 7 g (1/2 tbsp.) water
- 1/2 tbsp. cornstarch
- 3/8 cup strawberry jam
DIRECTIONS
- Whisk together the water and cornstarch in a small saucepan.
- Mix in the jam and stir over medium heat.
- Once the mixture begins to bubble, remove from heat and let cool.
ASSEMBLY AND BAKING
- Roll out the dough into a big rectangle, and cut into smaller rectangles
- Put a large spoon of the strawberry filling in the center of a rectangle, brush the edges with the egg wash, and put the matching rectangle on dough on top
- Use a fork to crimp the edges, and dock the top of each pop tart
- Chill the pan of pop tarts for ~30 minutes
- Heat the oven to 350 F. Once the oven is heated, remove the pop tarts from the fridge, brush them with egg wash, and bake for 25 – 40 minutes (until golden brown).
Notes:
- I was pretty lazy with the cutting of the rectangles, but this could be done in a more measured fashion so that everything is done evenly. if you check the original post, there are some good pictures on how to prepare them. My hands were a little too covered in dough to bother taking pictures. I just did them in groups of two so there were matching sets.
- This made 5 decent ones and a 6th one that was more of an empanada than anything else
- These are great on their own, but you can also ice them on top. I just mixed some icing sugar with a tiny bit of milk and vanilla, and poured it over the cooled pop tarts
Chateau Gateau 