Home made Pop Tarts

My kids used to adore picking out a flavor of pop tarts and we'd stash them in the cabinet with the good intentions of only eating them if we were having a rushed morning....which never happened. Not that rushed mornings never happened, oh no, the waiting until a rushed morning to use them.

For some reason they were like having fresh hot out of the oven cookies in the house.

So we stopped buying them, and honestly haven't had them in the house in months. I've wavered and nearly purchased them on my shopping runs once or twice, but thankfully we just haven't gotten back in the habit. Not that they are bad for you compared to the cereals the boys choose, but that they just weren't worth our purchase. They didn't seem to fill the kids up.

In the last Better Homes and Gardens magazine I got in the mail there was a little snippet about taking pie crusts and jams and making little rectangular pies. They showed them with a thin glaze of icing on the top and some sprinkles. My first thought was poptarts!! My second thought was of the Oh so tasty fried pies my great grandmother used to make....which of course meant they had to be made.

The  instructions in the magazine were something along the lines of :
Cut  your roll out pie crusts into rectangles, fill with jam of choice and bake. Once cooled, ice and decorate as you'd like.

Simple right!
So I purchased two boxes of roll out pie dough, and a bag of powdered sugar. Everything else we had in the house, we are a PB&J loving family, so jams are in abundance.

I just followed the pie crusts directions on pre-heating my oven. I also line my bake pans with foil, so that any seeping jams were easy to clean up.

My first issue with this was Pie Crust = round....not rectangular....so how do I cut it? I didn't even bother trying to fuss with it and just sliced into three sections and then sliced those again in half. I had six identical sized/shaped pie crust pieces that if overlapped would create the pockets I wanted. Two were rectangles, four were round edged triangles.

Now, this is where you can get really creative. 

Fill one side of each shape with the filling you've chosen. We used...Strawberry, Apple Cinnamon, Apple Butter and Grape Jam. We discussed Nutella, and even breakfast fillings such as eggs/bacon were suggested. However, we stuck with jams this round. 

We didn't spread the jams on really thick, about as much as you'd put on half a piece of toast. I didn't want them spurting out when you took a bite. Topped with the other matching pie piece we pressed the edges with a fork to make a sealed pocket. Then baked them for about 10 min. It may have been more, it may have been less, but around that amount of time. The boys hung out and watched them while we did other chores. 

Since we did so many flavors, we marked the ones the boys would be looking for with a letter matching their filling. The rectangle there on the bottom has an S for strawberry. I just used the end of a chopstick and pushed in a letter. 

Once they cooled I could barely get them iced with the can of store bought icing before they were run off with! We did not even get time to make the powdered sugar icing glaze we'd planned on making. So next time I'll make that first. 

My plans for next time include: 

Making my own pie crust recipe so I can control the shapes and amount needed more. We ate all but two of these and the two left were the sail shapes. I'd really like to be able to make a bunch and store them in the freezer for warming up. Very few actually leaked, so I'd feel safe popping one (un-iced) in the toaster. 

Making our own jams- this was actually a kids request, they asked how you make them and if we could make our own. I said Sure! of course. ^_~ 

I also want to try to make something close to the chocolate fried pies my great grandmother used to make as they were something I really loved as a kid. I think I know how to make the filling...but I'll figure it out! 

They are a definite hit at our house and while they may cost a bit more if your buying the pie crusts at the store like I did (even the store brand) they are so much more flavorful and healthy. 

Feel free to share if you make a flavor combination that is just amazing!! We want to try lots of flavors with these, so we'll be playing with them from time to time.