Do you ever find yourself watching TV shows that you hate, but you can’t turn them off? You just love to hate them! That’s me with Love It or List It, it drives me crazy and I spend most of the show shouting at Hilary – seriously, she’s the worst, she never has a contingency in her budget for any hidden problems, she basically ignores what the home owners want and acts like the fact they don’t have endless amounts of money to throw into her budget (that she’s terrible at managing) is their fault and that they’re crazy for being annoyed with her for messing things up! Who knew I would have such strong feelings about a HGTV show, right? But despite all that, I watch it all the time! I’m get a bit addicted to HGTV when I’m in the US, it’s about the only TV I watch out here, and I miss it a lot when I’m back home. I’m watching HGTV as I write this post, it’s Hawaii Life tonight though and I’m still finding myself moaning at the people on the TV! Maybe this is my guilty pleasure, enjoying being annoyed by strangers on the television!
Okay, on to something that is the opposite of annoying! Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Peanut Butter Pop Tarts (with frosting). The name may be a bit of a mouthful, but the pop tarts aren’t – they’re mini!
When I made this Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Peanut Butter I knew I wanted to bake with it, but what to make? My first thought was to make a spruced up version of my Peanut Butter Stuffed Chocolate Pudding Cookies, but that didn’t feel exciting enough. I don’t know how I ended up on pop tarts, but I’m so glad I did.
Oh my, these mini pop tarts are heavenly. The pastry is a pie crust and it’s so flaky and buttery and the sweet and salty filling is so tasty, especially when paired with the sweet frosting. And look how cute! These went down very well with my mum and her colleagues, they’re definitely a keeper.
The great thing about these is they’re easily changeable to suit your tastes and what you have access to. Just full them with your favourite pop tart filling and you have just improved that sweet breakfast 10 fold. I love store bought pop tarts, I’m not going to pretend like I don’t, but they cannot hold a candle to these homemade ones. It’s great for me too because they’re not a lot of varieties in flavour for pop tarts in the UK, I often bring back a box of the cinnamon brown sugar ones when I’m in the US – but now I can make my own, and I’m definitely going to!
The pastry is versatile too, it’s great with the pop tarts but you could also use it for a pie or anything else you might use a pie crust for. It’s nice and easy to make too, the key is making sure it’s nice and chilled so you get those beautiful and yummifying layers (totally a word). In fact, the whole pop tart is easy to make – even more so if you make the pastry dough the night before. Once you’ve made the dough and it’s chilled, you just roll it out, cut out rectangles and add the filling. Place another rectangle over the top and seal the packages and bake. Once baked and cooled you top with your frosting, which is a simple milk and sugar cinnamon glaze, and it once it dries it’s like an authentic pop tart experience, but so much tastier!
You really do need to try these, they’re so worth it. You don’t need to make the peanut butter (although it is totally worth it), you can fill them with whatever you want. You could also make them full size, I just think the mini ones are too cute!
I hope you enjoy this recipe either way
Oh, and by the way, I wrote this post last night and as I’m about to publish it I am watching Love It or List It – so you can now imagine me shouting at the TV!
- 320g plain flour (all purpose flour)
- 1 tsp salt
- 90g unsalted butter, cold and cubed
- 155g 100% vegetable shortening (e.g crisco or trex), cold
- 120ml ice water
- 1 egg and 1 tbsp milk for egg wash.
- 1/2 - 1 tbsp of Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Peanut Butter* per pop tart
- 90g icing sugar (confectioners sugar)
- 1 tbsp milk
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- To make the pastry, mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Add the cold butter and shortening ad cut it into the flour using a pastry cutter or two forks, until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs (some pieces may be larger, that's okay).
- Pour 120ml cold water into a cup or jug and add a few pieces of ice, swirl and leave to sit for a moment. Add 1 tbsp of the water to the dough at time, mixing in completely after each addition. You don't need to add all the water, just add it until the dough begins to clump together.
- Turn the dough out on to floured work surface and roughly roll out so it all comes together, the dough shouldn't be too sticky and should come together easily.
- Form into a ball and divide into two halves and flatten them into disks, wrap in plastic and chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour (up to 5 days).
- To assemble the pop tarts, remove one of the disks of dough from the fridge (leaving the other one in there) and roll out on a lightly floured surface (leave for up to 10 minutes if needed, to make the dough easier to roll out). Roll out to a large rectangle, about 12x9. Cut the dough into rectangles, about 1.5" x 2.5".
- Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper, and gently transfer the dough rectangles to the cookie sheet, they won't spread while baking so you can place them quite close together, set aside any dough cut offs. Place the sheet in the fridge.
- Remove the remaining half of the dough and roll out the same as above. Cut into 1.5" x 2.5" rectangles, making sure you have at least as many as the previous lot as these will be the tops to those bottoms!
- Beat the egg and milk together in a small bowl for the egg wash
- Remove the bottoms on the sheet from the fridge, and brush them with a little egg wash (this will help glue the tops on). Spoon the filling on, about 1/2 tbsp per pop tart, spread it out leaving a small border around the edge.
- Place one of the "tops" rectangles over the top and sealing at the edges, use a fork to crimp down the edges too to ensure there are no leakages.
- Repeat with all bottoms and tops. Poke holes in the tops to allow steam to escape during baking (a toothpick is perfect for this, about 4 holes for a mini pop tart is good).
- Place assembled pop tarts in the fridge for 20 minutes - 1 hour, you want the dough to be cold when it goes in the oven so you get those lovely layers.
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F
- Remove chilled pop tarts from the fridge and brush with egg wash. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown, rotate pan halfway through cooking
- Leave the pop tarts to cool on the tray for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- To make the glaze, put all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk together until smooth, add a little more milk if needed. Spoon a little glaze on top of the cooled pop tarts and spread out using the back of the spoon. The glaze will harden if you leave it for about an hour, but they're good wet too!
- *Recipe for Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Peanut Butter linked below
- Store pop tarts in an air tight container in the fridge for up to 5 days
- The unbaked dough can be stored in the freezer for up to 2 weeks.
Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Peanut Butter
Sweet Potato Pie Bars
Chocolate Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treats
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These sound marvelous! Peanut butter, cinnamon, and raisins sounds like a perfect flavor combination. I’ll have to give these a try 🙂
These came out PERFECT! I’ve always want to try making my own pop tarts, this might just give me the extra push because yours look incredible!! 🙂 YUMMMM!!
Thank you Stephanie! You should definitely try making your own, it’s surprisingly easy and the results are awesome! x
Pop-tarts – the kind Kellogg makes? use to be a staple in my pantry. With so many kids in and out I needed some snacks readily available. I wonder what they would think if they knew they were homemade – i would have been very popular, I think 🙂
Haha definitely! Pop tarts are great to have around because they’re quick, especially as they can be eaten cold. And it’s always better when they’re homemade!
My youngest loves pop tarts! I need to try this!
Definitely then, they’re like pop tarts upgraded!
Thanks for stopping by Michelle, hope your youngest likes them! x
Aaah Michelle! You have fallen for the trap of reality TV! I do that too!! 😀 I cant help myself… I watch awful TV shows, that I hate, but can’t help myself! I end up yelling at them knowing that it is futile as they are still so much more richer for the stupid things they do!
I have never ever had a pop tart in my life! For some reason I just never got into it! I have read so much about home made pop tarts that I feel I have to give it a go! I am pinning this so I can use your yummyfied Buttery Crust!! 🙂
I hope you’re having an awesome time in the US!!
I’m not exaggerating when I say the TV never goes off of HGTV here haha!
You should definitely give pop tarts a go, homemade or store bought – they’re quite addictive haha!
The crust is definitely worth making even without the pop tarts, so I hope you like it xxx
Oh wow, what a flavour combination! I haven’t eaten a pop tart since I was a teenager…
I don’t eat store pop tarts very often because we don’t get a good range of flavours in the UK, but it’s definitely homemade from here on out!
Thanks Hannah 😀
I grew up eating pop tarts, and loved them. These would be so much better! My favorites were cinnamon ones and the chocolate ones! I should make these!!
I loooove the cinnamon ones, I think I’ll be trying my hand at cinnamon brown sugar next time I make these!
You should definitely make these – if you love pop tarts you’ll be very happy with them!
Anything with peanut butter deserves a standing ovation! Thanks for bringing it to FF! Very much appreciated!
Thank you Margy!
Hope you’re having a fun time hosting!x
Thank you for sharing these delicious and wonderful looking Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Peanut Butter Pop-Tarts on #PureBlogLove link party, where anything goes! I hope to see you again next Thursday! I adore your blog and love your unique ideas!!!
Besos
Heidy
Thank you so much Heidy 😀 x
these sounds So good – I LOVE cinnamon with my peanut butter
It’s a really yummy combination isn’t it! Thanks for stopping by 😀
That’s such an awesome breakfast 🙂 Thank you for sharing. Yumm….
Thank you skd 🙂
Oh wow! I bet my girls would love these. Heck I know I would. Thank you for sharing and linking up to Scraptastic Saturdays. This post has been shared via Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Have a wonderful week.
Thank you!