I don’t know about you, but for me, childhood screams poptarts. Those shortcrust filled pastries that at the time seemed filled with delicious jams and topped with insane amounts of icing. There’s no way they could have ever been good for you, but bless my mom’s heart, she still bought it for us EVERY time that my two sisters and I would ask for them when at the grocery store. I swear, my mom has THE biggest heart in the whole wide world. I’m sure everyone thinks that their mom is the best, but I’m pretty sure that my mom is the best. As a child, she would spend hours upon hours everyday in the library reading to me as my older sister when to kindergarten the street over. My dad was gone a lot for my childhood, so she effectively raised three rambunctious children on her own, amazing, right?
Even now, she still never fails to love the three of us with all her heart – like, she’s coming to New York with me to help me find an apartment and get settled in before grad school AFTER spending 2.5 months in Taiwan accompanying my sister as she teaches English in a remote Taiwanese village!!! Anyway, these poptarts are officially dedicated to her. But not the store-bought, come in an aluminum package, warm up in the microwave type. More like the melt-in-your-mouth, crammed too full of berries, and topped with just the right amount of royal icing kind.
Speaking of moving to New York, I have put off finishing this post 2,752 times because I’ve been so busy packing and saying goodbye to all my friends. Never in my mind did I imagine how hard it would be to say goodbye to everyone that I love. I mean yes, I will be back to visit, but it’s crazy that in less than two days, I’ll be in the Big Apple and all my friends will be back at home. WAAHHHH I’m tearing up just thinking about it now. Before I start getting really sappy, I’m just going to continue with this poptart recipe. They’re perfect, they really are….BUT, maybe you should make them just to be sure 🙂
PRO TIP: If you have plastic wrap, the easiest way to roll the dough out is to sandwich the dough between two large pieces of plastic wrap and roll out the dough on top of the plastic wrap. That way it doesn’t stick to the counter, the rolling pin and is easy to remove!
MINI STRAWBERRY POPTARTS | Makes 16-18 depending on size
INGREDIENTS
for crust
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2″ cubes
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsp milk
- 1 cup strawberry jam or preserves
- 1 egg + 2 tbsp water for egg wash
for icing
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 tbsp milk
DIRECTIONS
- In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, and salt – mix well.
- Add in butter cubes and using hands or pastry cutter, work the butter into the flour mixture until mixture resembles coarse sand.
- In a small bowl, mix together egg and milk.
- Create a small well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour egg and milk mixture into well.
- Gently fold the liquid into the dry ingredients until a shaggy dough forms. Knead the dough a couple of times until dough is smooth.
- Refrigerate dough until firm (~ 1 hour).
- Preheat oven to 350 (F).
- Flour surface and roll dough to 1/8″ thick rectangle (see note above for easy way to do this!).
- Cut dough into 2×4″ rectangles making sure that you end up with an even number of rectangles so each will have a top and bottom piece.
- Place about 2 teaspoons of strawberry jelly on half the dough pieces.
- Place a dough piece on top of the rectangle already filled with jam and seal edges by using a fork to press down along the edge.
- Place in freezer for 15 minutes to help keep the poptarts from losing their shape in the oven. Just before placing in oven, brush tops of poptarts with egg wash to give it a nice golden color.
- Bake poptarts for 15-20 minutes and cool completely before icing.
- Mix powdered sugar and milk together until a smooth icing is formed. Spoon your desired amount of icing over each poptart and wait until icing solidifies before storing in an air-tight container.
Enjoy!
dumplings&donuts 