These Strawberry Pop Tarts will be the best ones you've ever had! Trust me on this one!
Course Dessert
Prep Time 30 minutesminutes
Cook Time 4 hourshours30 minutesminutes
Total Time 5 hourshours
Servings 10pop tarts
Calories 200kcal
Ingredients
Puff Pastry dough
1 1/2cupsall-purpose flour
1/2teaspoonsalt
14tablespoonsunsalted butter1 stick plus 6 tablespoons
6-7tablespoonsice water
Strawberry Jam Filling
16ozstrawberriesrinsed, stems removed and cut in half
1/4cupsugar
1lemonjuiced
3tablespoonswater
1tablespooncornstarch plus 2 tablespoons cold water
Chocolate Ganache
4ounceschocolateany chocolate you prefer, milk, bittersweet, dark, or a combination
4ouncesheavy cream
Instructions
Puff Pastry dough
Cut butter into small 1/2” pieces and stick it in the freezer for about 15 minutes.
In the bowl of a food processor add flour and salt. Add butter to food processor and process about 10-20 times until butter pieces are almost all incorporated into flour. When butter pieces are a bit smaller than the size of a pea, it’s time to stop. Do a couple pulses at a time and keep checking.
Drizzle ice water over mixture and process 3-4 times to combine. Transfer dough to the counter and work it minimally just enough to turn it into a ball. Don’t overwork your dough, otherwise it will be tough and not as flaky.
Form mixture into a 7 inch square, wrap it in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, remove dough from the fridge and roll it out into a large rectangle, measuring about 16x10”. Fold it letter style, wrap it and refrigerate it again. Folding the dough letter style means you’ll think of the widest side of the dough as divided into 3 parts, then you are going to fold one end all the way up to 2/3 of the length and then fold the other end over.
After 30 minutes, do the same thing again, now rolling the dough from the open sides. Fold it letter style and refrigerate again. Repeat this once more after 30 minutes. And then, refrigerate the dough for a couple hours before using.
Strawberry Jam Filling
Place strawberries, sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes until strawberries are soft and you can mash them with a fork, wooden spoon or a potato masher. Mash them up and keep cooking for a little bit longer. Taste for sugar, if it’s not sweet to your taste, add a little bit more sugar. Be aware that sometimes you’ll have a batch of very sweet berries or very tart berries, and the amount of sugar you add will depend on that. So make sure to taste your jam.
Once strawberries are mashed, mix cornstarch and cold water in a small bowl. When cornstarch is dissolved, add solution to the saucepan and cook, stirring constantly for 2 minutes, until it boils and jam thickens.
Transfer jam to a container, cover and refrigerate for a few hours before using.
Chocolate Ganache
Chop chocolate and add it to a bowl.
Heat heavy cream just until before it boils. Don’t let cream actually come to a boil.
Pour cream over chocolate and stir until all the chocolate is melted. Sometimes not all the chocolate will melt, when that happens, I stick the bowl in the microwave for a few seconds at a time and keep stirring until it’s smooth.
Set it aside to use later.
Notice that for the ganache to get to a piping consistency, you will need to wait until it’s completely cooled down. I like to stick my bowl in the fridge if I’m in a hurry.
To assemble
Remove dough from the fridge and divide it into 2 parts. Roll the first part until it’s 1/4” thick. Cut squares that are about 3” by 4” using a pizza cutter or a knife. I like to put my rectangles of dough in a baking sheet and stick it in the fridge while I roll out the second half because the dough will start to get warm and harder to work with.
Once you’ve rolled the first half and have cut as many rectangles as possible, roll out the second half.
To assemble your pop tarts, simply place a heaping teaspoon of strawberry filling in the center of a rectangle, cover with another rectangle and crimp edges with a fork.
Before I bake my tarts, I stick the tray in the freezer while I pre-heat my oven because this way the butter will firm up and provide a better structure.
Pre-heat oven to 375F and brush tarts with an egg wash (an egg beaten). Bake for about 15 minutes or so. Check halfway to see if you need to rotate your pan. Keep an eye on your tarts so they don’t overbake, every oven is different and it might take less or more time in your oven than in mine.
Once tarts are cool, place chocolate ganache in a piping bag, cut a small tiny hole in the bag and pipe ganache beautifully over tarts.