Circus Animal Pop Tarts

Easy homemade breakfast pastries that are much tastier than store bought. And cuter too!

I’d like to tell you that these taste just like Pop Tarts but it wouldn’t be the truth. I don’t know what they do to get that dry flavorless pastry. The rock hard icing? Also a mystery. These are made with pie dough so there is a ton of flavor from lard (that’s right, I said it!) and the pastry is flaky and tender.

The glaze is a simple powdered sugar and milk mixture, but has corn syrup in it to help it setup nice and shiny. They end up stack-able, but not crunchy and hard. In truth the only circus animal thing about these is their utter cuteness. I didn’t want to do anything too weird like crunching up cookies into the filling. Those cookies are cute, but I can’t get past that greasy coating.

And now to the filling, the best part! I filled these with Smucker’s Strawberry Simply Fruit which is pretty smooth, trying to stay true to the classic Pop Tart flavor. You can fill them with anything you want.

Any smooth jam, jelly, preserves, marmalade etc.

• Any smooth jam, jelly, preserves, marmalade etc.
• Apple butter
• Peanut butter with or without jelly.
• Nutella
• A schmear of melted chocolate chips and marshmallow fluff
• Biscoff cookie spread.
• Lemon curd
• Cream cheese mixed with cinnamon and sugar
• Pumpkin pie filling mixed with brown sugar and cinnamon
• Salted caramel
• Maple bacon

Go crazy!

Chef Shelley

Circus Animal Pop Tarts

I made these about half the size of store bought so you can have two or three. Or ten. I used Pillsbury refrigerated pie crusts. If you want to make your own you should definitely try Cook’s Illustrated’s recipe. If you don’t have a subscription you can find the recipe here. http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2007/11/cooks-illustrated-foolproof-pie-dough-recipe.html I filled these lightly but you can definitely make them bigger, fill them up and call them hand pies.

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Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 20 minutes mins

Total Time 30 minutes mins

Servings: 24

Ingredients Method

Ingredients

  

• Pastries
• Flour for dusting counter
• 2 boxes Pillsbury refrigerated pie dough 4 crusts or you’re the equivalent of your favorite pie dough recipe
• 1 cup or more of your desired filling
• Icing
• 2 ¼ c powdered sugar sifted
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1/8 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 drop Americolor soft pink – if you are using regular red food coloring barely dip a toothpick in the color and stir that into the glaze adding more color if necessary.
• Mixed color nonpareils or sprinkles of choice.

Method

 

1. Preheat oven to 450°.
2. Lightly dust counter with flour and roll out one crust just a little until it’s more rectangular in size and prick all over with fork.
3. Cut into desired size, I made them about 2 1/4 inches by 3 ½ inches.
4. Spread filling onto centers of rectangles.
5. Roll out another crust and cut into the same size rectangles. Prick all over with a fork.
6. Use a brush or just your finger dipped in water to wet the cut lines of the pie dough with filling.
7. Using a spatula place an unfilled rectangle on top of each filled rectangle.
8. Press edges together using your finger, a fork, or I used the edge of a spatula.
9. Put on a cookie sheet and bake for 20 minutes or until good and golden brown.
10. Move tart to rack to cool.
11. Mix all glaze ingredients. When you drop a spoonful of glaze back into the bowl it should settle in about 30 seconds.
12. Spread and sprinkle.
13. Eat!