Fancy Poptarts

I've never made pie crust from scratch.  But, the desire to revisit the Disney Toy Story Land Poptart in my own home was high.  So, I scoured the web for the simplest pie crust recipes, watched 5+ videos on how to successfully pulse out the dough in a food processor...and I DID IT.  You can learn from my mishaps (and I have, too, I've since then messed up a curry pot pie, but successfully used the scraps of it for pecan tarts).  

For the pie dough, I settled on the serious eats recipe: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/07/easy-pie-dough-recipe.html 

Glam shot of the poptarts' interior profile

Most recipes call for 3 cups of flour - and that's to make both the top and bottom of a pie.  Since...1) I don't have that many people to feed and 2) sugar intake responsibilities as an adult, I cut it in half and that made about 4.5 poptarts (why waste dough?). ​

Pie Dough
1.25 cups of all purpose flour
1 tbsp granulated sugar
9 tbsp cold butter, cut up into small pieces
1/2 teaspoon salt
Up to 3 tbsp of ice cold water (I just put an ice cube in a cup of filtered water and took what I needed from it)

Filling
Nutella (or equivalent, about 1-2 tablespoons per tart)
1 cup frozen berries and cherries mix (for 2 tarts)
1-4 teaspoons granulated or brown sugar to taste 
1 tablespoon cornstarch (more as needed to thicken)
Splash of lemon juice (optional)

Icing
1 cup powdered/confectioner's sugar
1 tsp maple syrup
1-3 tsp water/milk 
1-3 frozen cherries, heated, blended or mashed

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For the process, I used Joshua Weissman's video.  I found several others for directions and such, but his by far looked the best.  I incorporated a few steps from the other recipes, though.  ​

​PHASE 1: pie crust
Have all ingredients ready! Most websites state to work pie dough swiftly so that the butter doesn't melt into the dough (ideal for maximum flakiness/yumminess). Put flour, sugar, salt in food processor, pulse a few times to get it all mixed.  I have the smaller version of a food processor, and it all fit (though, making double might be tough).  Then add the chunks of butter, but put them all around, not just on one side of the food processor.   Pulse that a few times until it looks almost sandy with chunks.  Then start adding the water, 1 tablespoon at a time while pulsing it in between.  Stop when you get pea sized pieces.  That's when you (take out the blade) and start to mush it together with your hands.  If it comes together, pour it out onto a workspace and gather into a disk (check Weissman's video for what this should look like).  Wrap in plastic wrap and put into the fridge to chill 30 mins minimum.

PHASE 2: filling prep
I actually took my jam filling idea straight from Weissman, but since we're in lock down, only had frozen fruits. It worked really well still!  Mix all the ingredients under the filling section (except Nutella!) and over low to medium, heat it up and get it pretty thick so that it's easy to put into the filling.  Add a bit more cornstarch if it isn't quite thick enough.  You don't want it runny!  Also, you could alternatively use pre-made jam (as Weissman suggests).  For full Disney effect, I used a hazelnut chocolate pre-made spread for half of the poptarts.

Preheat the oven to 375f.

PHASE 3: shaping the dough
Take that pie disk out of the fridge and rest at room temp for about 15 minutes. I struggled A LOT with this.  My dough was a bit dry.  So it was really hard to roll out without it cracking.  Dipped my fingers into filtered water and start to dab it all over the dough, and it worked! Definitely flour the surface so that once the dough starts to warm up, it doesn't stick.  Like Weissman (my current dough hero), I flipped it back and forth to make sure it didn't stick.  Roll it down to 1/8 of an inch (pretty darn thin) and as close as possible to the size of a standard sized printer paper.  Weissman likes to measure.  But, I'm lazy and an improper baker. I cut out, using a knife, this paper sized dough, set aside the discard (disk form and wrapped in fridge), and then cut these into thirds lengthwise (landscape).  Egg wash the tops of these 3 strips.

Like Weissman, and what I felt was the easiest process, you're going to fold these strips in half to create the final poptart.  Other recipes have you cutting out individual squares.  Seems like an extra, unnecessary step and another place in which I could have leakage from the filling.  With this in mind, put about 1-1.5 tablespoons of filling on one half, leaving space to secure the pastry together.  Then, fold it in half and get any air space out of the tart.  Use a fork to secure and make it pretty.  Don't hesitate too much on the fork, I wish I had stamped it hard for a more pronounced outcome!

Poke the tops with a fork so that they don't poof up, then egg wash (and do some generously as you can see from mine, they aren't as shiny as I'd like), and then repeat with the remainder of the dough you put into the fridge (or do something else with it). 

PHASE 5: bake
​Place your shaped dough into the freezer or fridge for 10-15 minutes to chill that dough again. Then stick them into the oven for 27 minutes at 375f.

PHASE 4: icing/glaze
While they're baking, make the glaze. Take 1 tsp of either the crushed cherry or maple syrup and combine with 1 cup of the powdered sugar, mix.  It won't be enough liquid, so you'll add 1 tsp at a time of either water or milk.  It should be super, duper thick.  I definitely made the mistake of too much liquid for the cherry icing and had to thicken it up and reglaze.  Definitely do it on grates with a pan to catch up all that liquid. I sprinkled raw sugar on top since I didn't have magical toppings like Weissman or Disney have.

Let them cool before putting that glaze on, otherwise it'll just melt it and slide off.  The glaze should set in about 15 minutes or so.  Leave glaze on pan and slowly eat it all day long.

I do this weird thing where I don't love following all the dense text in other people's recipes/blogs.  So, I synthesize all the info from the (likely 5-10) video/blog/recipes into a short hand that likely only I understand.  But, thought that it might still be helpful for workflow to include:

​Flour, sugar, salt in food processor, disperse butter, mix, want bits of butter, start to add water, pea sized bits, add little bit of ice water at a time, knead a bit to mix up, don't over knead, roll into ball and then thick disk (split in 2 if doing full recipe), wrap and put in fridge (30 mins or so, can go 3 nights)

Prep jam during this time

Take crust out of fridge, rest at room temp 10 to 15 mins before rolling
Lightly flour workspace and dough, 9x12 rectangle rolled out 1/8 inch (as thin as possible!), make sure doesn't stick
3 inches wide each, 4 long strips for dough
Egg wash (egg and some milk)
Prep to fold each strip, 1 tbsp of jam, leave quarter of an inch on each side
Seal on edges, try to get out airpockets, and press fork pattern (do this tight!)
Freezer 10 mins, 375f, egg wash, oven for 27 mins

Glaze ideas
1 cups powdered sugar, add water 1 tsp at a time (or use some other liquid flavor), cool fully before icing (keep as thick as possible)