Day 2: Healthy Pop-Tarts

So, I had actually planned on doing something totally different today. But then life happened, and my day plans changed, and I had a lot less time at home. So at the very last minute, I decided to make these.

The recipe can be found on Chocolate-Covered Katie's blog:
http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2012/10/01/healthy-pop-tarts/

Since this recipe is from another blog, I'm just trusting you'll actually read the ingredients and process there (it's not long, promise!), and then follow along how the recipe handled in my real life.

The Ingredients

Instead of all-purpose flour, I decided to use a whole wheat white flour. I used honey as my sweetener, and didn't use stevia. Because I decided to use a different flour, I decided to use 2.5 tbsp of canola oil.

The Process

When mixing my ingredients, I just went ahead and combined both the dry and liquid ingredients all at once, and then mixed together. It didn't create any problems for me.
Do note that this recipe is extremely dry. Your dough won't really look like most dough, and will be extremely crumbly.

Use a small bowl so that you can just dump the crumbly mix straight into the ziplock.

When you pull out the rolling pin, strike a nice warrior pose.

Also realize that rolling the dough into a flat rectangle will be a pain in da booty....

When the recipe said "chill at least 20 minutes," I decided to stick the dough in the freezer because it seemed so dire that it be cold. Of course, then I ended up unexpectedly leaving the house (again) for a good 4 hours. lulz.


To make the rectangles, I just used a nice big spatula. The recipe says you "should be able to get 34-38 rectangles." Well, maybe, if you were feeding mice. I ended up cutting 15, and these still made quite small little pop-tarts.

Now, if you thought that the rolling was a pain (which I did), the next few steps are going to be horrible. Because the dough is rolled so entirely thin, accompanied by the fact that it was super crumbly and dry to begin with, it is just a POOP to scoop it up from the ziplock with a spatula, and then remove it from the spatula to the cookie sheet. I quickly discovered it was best to very very very gently use my fingers to pry it off the spatula; it will not shake off.
Even being very careful, I still had many rectangles crumble and tear (I wish I'd gotten some pictures of it so you could understand). I then had to re-roll (because it is so dry, you cannot just press it with your hands - so annoying) some more rectangles to be able to finish the few pastries I made.




For filling, I used peanut butter, jam, and nutella. You also have to be extremely careful when spooning on the fillings, because the dough so easily tears. I ended scraping filling from a spoon and onto the dough using my finger.

You also have to be careful when your patting down the top layer of dough, as it will still easily tear. Luckily, it doesn't matter as much if the top part is torn. It's important only if you plan on putting a glaze on the top.

By this point, I was really tired of messing with this recipe (in case you couldn't tell). I had only made 6 teensy-tiny pop-tarts, giving up and reconstructing any more dough crumbs. It was NOT worth the trouble to make the glaze.

The Finished Product

Some Notes

If you're using a creamy filling, it will dry out. The peanut butter and nutella were pretty chalky.

Liquid-y fillings, like the jam, seemed to hold up much better.

Also note that the edges of the pop-tarts are pretty brown and crispy. I only baked this 14 minutes, the minimum suggested bake time.

If I Could Do It Again....

I would absolutely, positively, most assuredly at least double this recipe. That way you could make thicker sections, which might possibly stay together better.

To be able to make more than 6 measly pop-tarts, I'd make even more of the dough, and use a few more ziploc bags, or possibly a 2.5 gallon one.

I'd also try adding more liquid to the dough to make it stick together a bit better. Adding more oil or butter would defeat the purpose of a "healthy" pop-tart; I'd probably try some form of milk, maybe soy or vanilla almond as these seem a bit thicker.

I'd definitely find a rectangle cookie cutter, to make everything more uniform and thus prettier.

I'd drop the baking temperature by 25 degrees, or bake it for only 10-12 minutes.

The Final Verdict

Not worth it. Nope nope nope not worth the trouble.

The dough is just an absolute pain to deal with. It is so troublesome.

And then all that trouble, for what? Unfortunately, the actual dough/crust doesn't taste good. At all. It's dry (shocker!) and chalky, and just kinda tastes like dirt. Yuck.

The only saving grace is the filling, which you don't even prepare yourself. If the filling is sweet, it's tasty. So the peanut butter version I made tasted pretty yucky, but the nutella and jam variation were decent. But again, only because of the filling inside! And even then, the bakes texture of the peanut butter and nutella were not pleasant.

Now I realize that I didn't make the glaze. The glaze would definitely have added some sugar, and made it a little less dry. But it still probably wouldn't be worth it, because you don't drench the pop-tart in glaze.

I can't recommend this recipe. There are tastier but still healthy breakfast recipes out there. Even if you just absolutely love pop-tarts but are on a diet, I wouldn't recommend these; they don't actually taste like pop-tarts.

Uggh. What a disappointment. I really had high hopes for these!