Making "Pop-Tarts" at Home
Eater recently reported that Pop-Tarts will open its first retail shop and café on August 10, and lucky for me, it will be in Times Square, right around the corner from our midtown-Manhattan offices. I'll admit to a childhood love of Pop-Tarts. In fact, if I concentrate, I can still remember the taste of my favorite flavor, strawberry with frosting and sprinkles-when you're eating what essentially amounts to cake for breakfast, why skip the frosting?
According to Eater's post, the Pop-Tart World Cafe will feature a Varietizer, which allows you to create custom boxes filled with your favorite flavors. There's also going to be a Customization Station where you can create your own Pop-Tart t-shirt. I suppose serious fans of the toaster pastry could be into that, but I would be more interested in customizing my own Pop Tart, wouldn't you? Strawberry-rhubarb, fig, nutella, peanut butter-I love the idea of filling that flaky dough with my favorite fruits and spreads. Well, it seems that might not be such a crazy idea.
Epicurious has a very highly rated recipe for Strawberry "Pop-Tarts" (see full recipe below) and according to the user reviews, they're not just easy to make, they're also rather flexible. Jenncc from L.A. made strawberry, raspberry, and quince versions while TanyaThomas of Santa Cruz swapped half the all-purpose flour for whole wheat pastry flour in her batch. When I make them, I'm obviously going to nix the powdered sugar in favor of vanilla frosting and sprinkles.
Strawberry "Pop-Tarts"
Bon Appétit | April 2010
by Gayle Pirie and John Clark
Yield: Makes 8
This homemade version of the childhood favorite is absolutely incredible. Flaky pastry, strawberry preserves, and powdered sugar-what's not to like?
Ingredients
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour plus additional for shaping and rolling
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
4 tablespoons ice water
12 tablespoons strawberry preserves (preferably organic homemade)
Powdered sugar
Fresh strawberries
Preparation
Whisk 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons flour, coarse salt, and sugar in large bowl. Add butter. Using fingertips or back of fork, blend in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add ice water by tablespoonfuls, tossing until moist clumps form. Gather dough into ball. Divide in half; shape each half into disk. Wrap in plastic. Chill at least 1 hour.
Line 2 large rimmed baking sheets with parchment. Working with 1 disk at a time, roll out dough on floured surface to about 13x11 inches. Trim to 12x10-inch rectangle, then cut into eight 5x3-inch rectangles.
Arrange 4 rectangles, spaced apart, on each sheet. Spoon 1 1/2 tablespoons preserves in row down center of each rectangle. Top preserves with second dough rectangle. Using fingertips, gently press all edges of each tart to seal; press all edges with tines of fork to double-seal. Using toothpick, poke a few holes in center of top dough rectangle. Cover; freeze tarts on sheets at least 2 hours and up to 1 week.
Position 1 rack in top third and 1 rack in bottom third of oven and preheat to 375°F. Bake frozen tarts uncovered until golden, reversing sheets after 15 minutes, 25 to 30 minutes total (some preserves may leak out). Immediately transfer tarts to rack. Sift powdered sugar lightly over. Serve warm or at room temperature with fresh berries.
What's the Pop-Tart of your dreams?
By Lauren Salkeld
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