More Homemade Pop Tarts

Last week, black raspberry pop tarts were in the spotlight, and I focused mainly on the crust.  And just in case you’ve forgotten what it looked like:

This week, my eyes are on the fillings.  Specifically, Nutella.  I briefly contemplated a key lime marmalade filling but nixed it because it has a similar consistency to the black raspberry jam and I wanted to see how the pastry would do with a heavier, denser filling.

Turns out it makes a big difference.  But we’ll (ha! I just used the royal “we”!) get to that in a minute.

I decided that while cutting out eight small sheets of pop tart pastry wasn’t at all hard, I was going to save myself the effort and instead, cut four longer strips of dough.  My intention was to put the filling on the bottom half and simply fold the other half over it.

I used about 1 1/2 tablespoons of Nutella for each

Folded the dough over

Best to roll and press the edges together with your fingers and then go over it again with a fork

Frozen pop tarts

Into the toaster oven at 375F

These two tarts came out a little browner than I liked. . .  Okay, I left them in the toaster oven too long and they burned at the edges.   I ate them anyway.  It was not as good as I’d hoped- the Nutella was slightly rubbery and stiff.  Not what I was expecting at all.  I attributed this to having been overcooked, and tried again.

The second batch of pop tarts.  I cut it in half before I realized I hadn’t take a shot of it whole. Whoops.

Up-skirt

See how the top crust is still flaky (although not as fluffy-looking as the crust on the black raspberry tarts from last week)?  The bottom looks flat and thin, and while it was still flaky, it didn’t have the same lightness I was expecting.  Maybe I overworked the dough or something.  I’m very disappointed by my Nutella pop tarts.

I realize that this is purely anecdotal, but I feel the Nutella was too heavy and dense for the bottom crust to bake up as nicely as it did with fruit preserve innards.  As I said, it could be that I overworked the dough.  I’m going to try again with both Nutella and the key lime marmalade, and use a different pie crust recipe, then see how it goes.