So for Xmas, I went to a party at my Aunt’s house for which each person had to bring a dessert and their recipe. For whatever reason, I guess because I would have extra free time being that I wasn’t working, and an actual kitchen, being that I was at my parents house, decided that this would be a good time to try making Pop Tarts from scratch. This is bizarre for several reasons. First, I don’t like Pop Tarts. Second, I am ridiculously impatient and can’t stand tedious things, like, cutting a bunch of perfectly shaped/measured Pop Tarts for instance. I also am not really in to desserts. And maybe that’s why I did this. Because it was for other people, people who DO like dessert, and I figured I could challenge myself. The process itself was a ridiculous mess, but I have to admit that the end result was pretty effing delicious.

DOUGH

Now, I am not even going to bother giving you the recipe, because the dough didn’t work for me and I dont know what I did wrong, but of course i doubled the recipe so i can screw up 2x a much. Seriously, go to BraveTart’s Pop Tart Recipe and see if you can figure it out. Cause she’s a food genius and I’m a stressed out designer, so it had to be something stupid that I did.

Basically, I made her dough, but I mixed the butter in to the flour with a food processor instead of hand pinching it, (mostly because I was hungover, but also because I was in a time crunch and had to do a pie dough as well right after) and then added the corn syrup, and i was left with a messy pile so sticky it wouldn’t come off the saran wrap i used to let it sit in, while I had a cocktail and prayed that it would improve upon sitting in the fridge. It did not. At all. However, on a side note, my mother, queen of getting things to last forever, has the oldest and cutest food processor ever.

So, when I got the dough out to roll and it was a wet and sticky disaster, I had to do something to make it work so I added, like, a fucking CUP of whole wheat pastry flour and that still didn’t help very much, but i could kiiiiind of roll it out and add more flour on top and get it to stay somewhat rectangular, but it still stuck like crazy so they keep squishing on the spatula and getting thick. And when I got REALLY frustrated and decided to quit, i used a biscuit cutter to make pop tart ravioli, haha. Actually a MUCH better serving size anyways.

FILLING

About this time I started flashing back to the time I decided i was going to make my favorite Girl Scout cookie, Samoas, and ended up covered in caramel and coconut cursing at inanimate objects. I wish I had a picture of THOSE babies! They could have been the logo for this site. So I decided that there was no way I was doing what looks to be a complicated fruit filling, and instead tossed together things I like in a bowl –

1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cayenne powder
4 tsp or so of whole wheat pastry flour

and the I grabbed bunch of chocolate chips, cause i like chocolate with cayenne a TON. Pretty much the only time I like chocolate…and then i put some down on each dough shape before adding my top layer.

Then i sealed those babies up (with a fork because i have now abandoned all Pop Tart dreams) and poked them baked them on a parchment lined cookie sheet for about 30 minutes, and then let them cool a couple hours.

ICING

I reserved a tablespoon or so of my filling and mixed it with powdered sugar and half and half until I was please with the consistency and then dripped it on top! It took about 6 hours to dry.

These really were quite delicious…UGLY FOOD, people!!! but I would do them next time as cinnamon cayenne choc chip cookies next time with cinnamon icing. So stay tuned. : ) And until then, go marvel at BraveTart.