Homemade Poptarts

Getting ready for work, I don't always have time to eat a proper breakfast.  I usually find myself with a glass of juice, an Eggo, and a pop-tart in front of the bathroom mirror while I'm getting ready.  While I pride myself in enjoying the whole wheat frozen waffle, pop-tarts are not exactly high on the healthy-meter, nor the scrumptious factor.  I decided not too long ago, that that needed to change.  My two options were that I could scour the local health food store for a slightly "better for you" option that probably tasted like cardboard (not that the name brand version doesn't) and cost three times as much or make it myself.  I realize that the second option isn't necessarily healthier (most of us know all about pastry crusts), however, making it oneself does ensure that you know what all the ingredients are and can pronounce them.  This is the option I chose the other day.  Unfortunately, I didn't think about taking pictures and posting them until I was done.  So I have a couple finished products, the recipes I used, and some tips/hints I learned as I went.

I combined a few different recipes.  Most of the ones I found were relatively the same.  I also used three different fillings.  The first is a fresh fruit filling I found with this recipe, using real strawberries.  I recommend trying this; it's really good!  It's also one of the very few that called for real fruit, not jam.  Another aspect of this recipe that I used was the colored frosting and sprinkles.  I wasn't going to dye the frosting or use sprinkles, but I saw them in the spice drawer while looking for vanilla and thought that I'm only young once and life's too short not to have fun baking.  Who says I can't be a kid again?  I am making pop-tarts, after all. 

The second filling was jam-based.  Most sites called for strawberry jam, but I used a mix of what I had: plum and pepper raspberry.  I took this filling and crust recipes from here.  There were many sites that called for whole wheat flour, which is healthier, but I don't have any right now so, but you feel free if you have it.  The third filling was a cream cheese filling that I found as a small side note on another site.  "Just mix 2 ounces of cream cheese with 2 tablespoons of sugar and a 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract."  One word: amazing.  On a couple, I may have put a layer of cream cheese and a layer of fruit filling.  I was feeling adventurous. 

Something I would do differently next time is that I might use a different crust recipe.  The texture of this crust was actually close to perfect, however, I think for breakfast I would like something with a tad less butter.  Also, it's a bit too salty.  I could've sworn at the time that I grabbed the correct measuring spoon for the salt, however, thinking back now, it's entirely possible that I, in fact, did not.  The point still stands, watch your salt when making pastry crusts!  It'll affect the whole item.  Another tip for crusts, which I learned first-hand, rolling it out between sheets of floured parchment or wax paper makes things a lot easier.  At least one on the bottom and flour on the rolling pin.  Even if you sprinkle the counter with flour, you'll probably end up scraping your dough up with a knife and have to redo your rectangles on the baking sheet.

After baking, make sure they are completely cooled before frosting.  The pics I took are from the best looking tarts.  When I started frosting them, I thought they were cool enough.  They weren't and the frosting melted and slid right off.  I colored the strawberry ones pink, the plum/pepper raspberry tarts purple, and the cream cheese ones blue and sprinkled before they set.  Also, pay attention if you have more than one type of filling and are color coding them by frosting.  Even though I had marked them beforehand, I started frosting cream cheese ones with pink, as you can kind of see here.

Again, here are the two main recipe links I used:
http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2010/07/22/homemade-pop-tarts/
http://blogs.babble.com/family-kitchen/2010/07/19/recreate-a-classic-strawberry-pop-tarts/