From the blog For Love of the Table
150 g. all-purpose flour (1 1/4 c.)
150 g. cake flour (1 1/2 c., sifted)
100 g. sugar (1/2 c.)
1/2 t. salt
200 g. unsalted butter (14 T.), at a cool room temperature—should be malleable but not super soft
2 egg yolks
30 g. heavy cream (2 T.)
1 egg white, beaten until broken up and frothy
3/4 to 1 c. well-chilled jam (choose a good quality all fruit jam—jams made with sugar tend to cause the Pop-Tart to rupture during baking)
1 or 2 recipes of powdered sugar glaze, optional
Combine the first four ingredients and whisk to blend. Cut the butter into 1/4-inch slices and add, tossing with the dry ingredients to coat. Rub the butter (preferably using a stand mixer, but you may also use your hands) into the dry ingredients until the mixture looks like coarse meal and holds together when squeezed tightly (the “clump” produced will immediately fall apart into “meal” if lightly pressed). Combine the yolks and cream and drizzle over the butter-flour mixture. If working by hand, fluff with your fingers until clumps form, then turn out onto a lightly floured counter and knead just until the dough comes together. If using the stand mixer, run on low/med-low until the mixture comes together into 2 or 3 clumps. Turn out of the mixer bowl and knead once or twice to bring it together. If the room is cool, the dough will be firm, but malleable and may be used right away. If the room is warm, chill until cool and firm….but not rock hard. If the dough has been made ahead and chilled and is rock hard, let it sit at room temperature until it is malleable.
Working with a third of the dough, roll out the dough into a large, thin (scant 1/8-inch) rectangle that is at least 8-inches by 12-inches. It will probably be larger than this….it is important that it not be too thick. Brush off the excess flour and using a pastry wheel, trim the dough to the aforementioned 8-inches by 12-inches. Cut this large rectangle into eight 4- by 3-inch rectangles. Take half of the remaining dough and press the scraps into this fresh piece. Roll the resulting chunk of dough out as for the first third. Repeat with the remaining piece of dough combined with the scraps from the second rolling. If you have a lot of dough left, roll it out and cut as many 3- by 4-inch rectangles as possible. You will have anywhere from 24 to 28 rectangles, depending on how thin you rolled the dough.
Half of the rectangles will be “bottoms” and half will be “tops”. Spread the bottoms on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Prick the tops in a decorative fashion with a fork. Brush the bottoms with the egg white. Place a level tablespoonful of jam on each bottom and use a small spatula (or your fingers) to spread the jam out to within a scant half inch of the edges. One at a time, carefully lay the tops over the jam-covered bottoms and press evenly to seal. If you like, use a chef’s knife or pastry wheel to trim the pastries so that they are uniform and even. Transfer the sheet pan of sealed and trimmed pastries to the freezer and freeze until hard all the way through—at least an hour.
When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°. Place 4 to 6 pastries at a time on room temperature, parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing evenly (you don’t want to crowd the sheets). Bake until the pastries are just beginning to turn golden brown on the edges and the tops are set—about 20 minutes, rotating the pan from front to back, half way through the baking time. Briefly cool on the baking sheets before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.
If you like, when the Pop-Tarts are cool, frost or drizzle with powdered sugar glaze. Makes 12 to 14 Pop-Tarts.
Powdered sugar glaze: Place 1 cup (115 g.) powdered sugar in a small bowl. Add 4 t. of milk and 1/2 t. of lemon juice and mix until smooth. You may replace the lemon with vanilla…but I found this too be a bit too sweet for my taste.
Notes & Variations:
The pastry is easy to work with if your room is cool. If you are working in a warm room, you will have to keep any portion of dough that you aren’t working with in the refrigerator to keep it cool.
Occasionally the tarts will crack on top when baking. If this happens, once they are cool, simply frost with the powdered sugar glaze to cover up the fissure. While not perfect, they still taste great. It was my experience that red fruits like strawberries and plums tended to cause the tarts to crack most often. Blueberry on the other hand didn’t tend to act this way. Nutella and other paste like fillings will not crack or ooze at all. Baking the tarts from frozen discourages cracking.
You can of course make Pop-Tarts in any shape or size you like. A good size for a "mini" Pop-Tart is 2 1/2- by 3-inches. You will need a level half tablespoon of jam for this size. For my heart shaped Pop-Tarts, I used a cutter that measures 3 1/2-inches across. This holds 1 1/2 to 2 level teaspoons of jam. These smaller tarts only need to bake for about 15 to 16 minutes. Be warned that the mini Pop-Tart (when made with jam) will split and ooze about 75% of the time. The heart almost always oozes a bit. But in both cases, frosting covers the fissure so that no one but you will be the wiser. One recipe makes about 18 to 20 hearts or mini Pop-Tarts.
The recipe halves very neatly...to make just 6 or 7 regular Pop-Tarts or 8 to 10 mini Pop-Tarts or hearts.
My oven has unusually strong bottom heat, so when I bake these I use insulated baking sheets. If you have a similar problem and don’t have insulated sheets, simply stack one baking sheet on top of another to create an insulated-style sheet.
http://www.forloveofthetable.com/2016/02/homemade-pop-tarts.html
As published on forloveofthetable.com
Unless otherwise noted, all content and photos © 2010-2016 Paige Vandegrift, All Rights Reserved