Pop Tarts

A while back I stumbled onto a recipe for Pop Tarts, so of course I printed it and tucked it away in my binder, where it languished for quite a long time.  Yesterday I thought of it again and intended to make them, but just didn't get around to it. 

So this morning, after my traditional Sunday morning breakfast of pancakes and raspberry jam, I decided the time had come.  I cracked out my recipe binder and whipped up a batch of raspberry Pop Tarts.

Here is the recipe I used.  I followed the directions pretty exactly, except for one thing.  Somehow my brain read 4 X 3 rectangles as "make 12 rectangles" instead of 9 rectangles of those dimensions...so my Tarts are a bit smaller than the original recipe called for.

A few things to note, if you're thinking of making these, too...

• The dough is very soft and a little tempermental - it doesn't respond well to a warm environment due to the high butter content.  Try to keep your hands cool while you're working with the dough and don't be afraid to refrigerate or freeze the dough as needed.
• Possibly due to the smaller size of my Tarts, I didn't use anywhere near the amount of filling called for.  I had about 1/3 of the raspberry jam leftover, so you might consider cutting down the amount you use, or putting more filling in each one (although that might cause some leakage, so try this at your own risk).
• The dough stuck to the counter pretty well, so an offset spatula was needed to get the rectangles off the counter without tearing them.  Next time I will either roll the dough out between sheets of wax paper or I'll use a bit more flour on the counter.  Either way, I'll keep my offset spatula handy.
• I used a fork to prick the top dough, but the jam filling seemed to seal the holes back up, so my Tarts were quite puffy.  Next time I'll try poking more holes in the dough and possibly using a toothpick instead of a fork. 
• The recipe doesn't talk about icings at all.  I thought they were quite delicious without any icing, but Bryant really does prefer it.  I would probably use a simple powdered sugar glaze if I were going to eat them right away.  For longer storage or a truer Pop Tart experience, a royal icing would work better.