Pop Treat

When I was a kid, I was an extremely picky eater. As I’ve mentioned before, I was so picky (how picky were you??) that I honestly ate white bread and ketchup sandwiches for lunch when I was six years old. I did not like melted cheese or raisins. I also did not like crusts.

Disliking crusts as a child is not an uncommon finding, but what was unique was the way in which I would discard crusts, or “find” crusts on items you wouldn’t think had them, like Pop Tarts.

Yes–Pop Tarts have crusts. If I bit into any part of a Pop Tart that did not have any trace of the sweet strawberry or blueberry jam filling, out of my mouth it went. BLEH. I left the crusts behind on my plate like chicken bones.

Cut to 20 years later, and I’ve gotten better about crusts. In fact, I even like them, especially when crusts are chewy. (I also developed a habit of secretly coveting slightly stale food just for their chewiness factor.) I have also found that Pop Tart crusts are even better when they are HOME-MADE, as I delightfully discovered upon baking my own as a Valentine’s Day treat for CP.

Ingredients:

  • Pie crust, I used refrigerated since I don’t know how to make my own…YET
  • Jam–I used seedless strawberry
  • Glaze (recipe below)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to the temperature setting on the pie crust box. I set my oven for 450.

Unroll the pie crust and let sit for about 10 minutes so that it reaches room temperature. I didn’t have a pizza cutter to cut out a large square, but found that using the dull side of a knife works well. Then cut the square into whatever size rectangles you want. I used a 9” pie crust and got six rectangles out of the dough, perfect for three Pop Tarts.

Place a spoonful of jam in the center of a rectangle and top with another piece of crust. Crimp all four edges with a fork. Repeat until all of the pie crust is used.

Bake the pop-tarts for about 7 – 8 minutes or until slightly brown.

Once cooled, top with the glaze. Since I was a little late in getting to the store, all the red sparkly sugar was gone! Luckily, I had red food coloring, and just added it to the glaze to make it pink.

To Make the Glaze:

  • 1 cup powder sugar
  • milk to thin

Add milk a little at a time to make the powdered sugar thick, almost syrup-like. When the Pop Tarts have cooled, top with the glaze and let dry.

P.S.: Fun fact alert–for any one of you reading this that loves Ghostbusters, when I pulled the Pop Tarts out of the oven, some of the jam had leaked out. Not a problem at all–easy to clean up–but what made me laugh was that the bubbling strawberry jam instantly made me think of the goo from Ghostbusters II, so much so that I took a pic of it.

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