Homemade poptarts

     I love pop tarts. We never had them growing up unless I sneaked (I always want to write snuck, sneaked sounds so wrong) some from a vending machine with spare change. After I got married and had to make our grocery money stretch and I understood why. Those little tasty delights are expensive, even the generic ones! After I actually read the nutritional label I cringed. Those little tasty delights are bad, bad, bad for you! They come 2 in an individual  package and that's supposed to be the meal. How many of you had more than one package? I know I have. How many ate a package for a snack? I know I did (WHAM~Hello thighs). So I rarely buy them. It has to be a super sale with coupons, and those corporations are catching on to me.

     Big Dude likes to have them occasionally then he's running late for work. It's easy for him to grab and eat while driving. While pinteresting (ah, pinterest. My newest obsession), I searched homemade pop tarts and started looking at all the different recipes. A lot of people were using store bought pie dough. So I ignored those people. I mean, really? Homemade pop tarts using store bought dough?? Any who, I clicked on a few different real homemade pop tarts and then Little Dude woke up. So the thought went to the back of my mind and stayed there for a week. On a chilly day I was wanting to use the oven to chase the chill out the house and I remembered those pop tarts I never made. So I pulled out my Betty Crocker cook book and started making a pie dough. I'll post the recipe later, when I actually make a batch that is so yummy I immediately make another.
     It took my about 10 minutes to make and then I let it chill in the fridge for 30 minutes. Then I rolled it out and started looking in my cabinet trying to find something to use as a cutter for the pop tarts. I found my box cheese grater. It's a rectangle and I figured it was worth a shot. I sprayed my cookie sheet with olive oil and placed my rectangles down. I had some strawberry freezer jam I made that I thought would go perfectly. It was my first time making the jam and it was super sweet so I thought this would be a good way to use it up. I placed about half a table spoon on each piece of pastry and then laid a piece on top. I crimped the edges with a fork and poked some holes in the top. I placed in the oven at 350° for about 20 minutes (they were beginning to brown). I took them out the oven and realized I didn't get all my edges sealed and most all my filling spilled out on the sheet.  :(

The 2 on the bottom look absolutely horrible.

    I let them cook on the wire rack and then tried one anyways. It tasted ok. There's a chance actually having filling inside would make it taste better (ya think?) so these need to have another go around. Next time I want to use whole wheat flour (gotta make them healthier!), and maybe less filling (maybe I overfilled?).