Pop Tarts

Lost the camera so I had to use my phone.

The other day a close friend of mine told me how proud she was of herself for making homemade pop tarts out of pie crust dough and jam. They were so good in fact, that her 5 year old son told her that 'they were the best food in the entire world right now.'  He's right, they totally are! Remember how awesome pop tarts were for as a kid? Like eating dessert for breakfast and getting away with it? Homemade ones are even better. Granted, everything homemade is usually better than the boxed kind but seriously these were awesome and terribly easy.

 I imagine that if one were to make one's own pie crust, these would be even more amazing. As I was not in possession of a whole lot of time and not going to wait until I was (which would be never), I cheated and bought frozen pie crust. Oh well, still delicious. To balance out the cheating I did use some of my grandmother's homemade blackberry jam for the filling on some of the pop tarts. I did use two other store bought jams for filling the rest. Since Gram lives very far away, making the supply of homemade jam hard to come by, I wasn't about to use all of her jam in a recipe and not have any left for toast or bagels.


Homemade Pop Tarts

2 frozen pie crusts, thawed or homemade pie crust dough

1 jar of a favorite jam or in my case, three different kinds

1 egg, beaten

1/2 cup confectioner's sugar

1 tbsp milk, plus more just in case

Roll out pie crust dough to about 1/8 inch thickness. With a knife or pizza cutter, slice the dough into desired rectangles or use a cookie cutter to cut out shapes. Spread one shape with jam leaving a generous space along the border of each. Top with a corresponding shape. With a fork, crimp the edges of the shapes together all the way around and poke a few holes in the top for steam to escape. Repeat with remaining shapes.

Arrange shapes on a cookie sheet and brush liberally with the beaten egg. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown and bubbly.

Meanwhile, whisk confectioner's sugar and milk together. If the icing is a little too dry add milk in teensy amounts until the desired consistency is reached. If it's too wet, add confectioner's sugar in teensy amounts.

When pop tarts have fully cooled, drizzle with icing and allow to harden. Store in an air tight container, that is if any make it into storage and you don't eat them all immediately. Ah, childhood.