What’d You Do Last Weekend?

Want to try a gluten-free dessert that tastes anything but? How about hanging your lip on a Nanaimo bar? The recipe's from our neighbors up north, but the gluten-free graham crackers are a creation of Celiac Teen's Lauren. Unbelievable.

Homemade Pop Tarts

Posted by jenny on 05/11/2008

in

After Lucy Bland came back from their West Coast tour recently, I found jars upon jars of jams and fruit spreads laying around the band gear - I guess they had all bought while on the road, fearful they'd run out of food while driving in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, I was determined to use up some of the stash because I wanted room in the pantry for jams and jellies not yet bought - plus, I thought it would be simple to recreate pop tarts with a little homemade pie dough and jam.

It was harder than I thought.

Surprisingly, for those of you who know me and my pie crust issues, this pie crust turned out light and flaky - and it was even made with whole wheat crust. That was the surprise. What was a pain was how much time it took to roll, stuff, seal and bake the little buggers. After a pan of them, I quit, happy I got that far.

Here's the recipe for those so inclined...which did taste good and probably had less sugar and fat than the real things. But you have to have time, patience and a whole lotta love.

Homemade Pop Tarts

For the dough:
1 c whole wheat flour
1 c AP flour
1 stick butter
1/4 c canola oil
1/4 c water
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 450 degrees
Mix flours and salt.
Cut in butter until your flour resembles small peas.
Add oil to flour mixture and combine briefly.
Add water to mixture 1 T at a time until the whole thing makes a ball. You may discard the extra water.
Roll out to 1/8" thick.
Cut rectangles of similar size, and drop a dollup of jam in the middle.
Pinch shut and bake for 7 - 9 minutes, just before the edges start to ooze with hot jam.

Some lessons learned:

No matter how evenly I cut the rectangles, they never quite fit perfectly because I was pinching the edges with a fork.
Use less jam than you want to use. It will ooze and will escape any hole it can find.
Powder the tops with a little cinnamon sugar or disco sugar to make them look better - because whole wheat isn't super beautiful.
Make sure when you seal the edges you don't get any jam in the seal or you will have ooze.