Vegan MOFO - Day 2: Strawberry PopTarts

So, how I actually came about making these was interesting, and purely to prove someone wrong. Would I make them again? Yes, a million times, yes. But I would make a large quantity and freeze them. For a small amount of poptarts this really is an effort. But in the end, worth it.

So, I overheard a conversation between two colleagues at work, and overheard the word "poptart"
now, for anyone who had poptarts as a kid, they were a huge deal. They fit straight into your toaster and came out nice and warm. Most people remember burning the roof of their mouthes on the gooey, hot inside if they couldn't wait for it to cool down.

- Anyway, moving along. Due to the sugar quantity apparently Australia will not allow imports of the product anymore. My colleague was ranting about how he absolutely loved them and he didn't know what he was going to do (A bit of a crazy. He has a wall of poptart boxes on his work desk)
So I piped in to say, "Well... you could always make them at home?"
"...make poptarts? YOU CAN'T JUST MAKE A POP TART!"

That was it, I was sold. I got home and started on my vegan pop tart creation.

First, you have to make the jam - you can buy one if you really want, but making it fresh really made a HUGE difference, and requires minimal effort... plus I had a heap of strawberries in my fridge which I got cheap from the market.



Strawberry Jam:
2 cups of strawberries, diced
2 cups of sugar (brown or white, I used white)
and two small or one large lemon, juiced

Layer strawberries and sugar in a container until you are finished, then pour the juice over the top to cover
Leave OVERNIGHT - this will start preserving and breaking down the strawberries
After at least 24 hours, you can then place the mixture into a heavy bottomed pan (I used a non stick fry pan)
Place pan on medium - medium high heat and let the strawberries cook and the sugar melt.
Cook for about 15 - 20 minutes, using a spatula to mix frequently - you do not want this to burn!
You will know the jam is ready when... well, it looks like jam.

For this recipe the jam cannot be chunky, so I placed the hot jam mixture into my blender, and let sit and cool down for about 10 minutes, before blitzing it until smooth and no chunks remained.
It will then look something like this:

Pop tart pastry:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup vegan margarine
1.4 cup of vegan shortening (recipe will work without it)
1/4 cup ice cold water (make this 1/2 cup if omitting shortening)
2 Tbs sugar

Place flour, margarine, shortening and sugar into a food processor and blend until the mixture resembles a sand like mixture.

Place this into a mixing bowl and add cold water, knead until dough like.

To combine:
Preheat oven to 180C

Roll out pastry to about .5cm thick
Cut the pastry in rectangles which fit inside your toaster (check this, you will be disappointed if they don't fit!) You will need two rectangle pieces of pastry for each pop tart
place 1 tablespoon of jam mix into the center of half of the pastry rectangles, and gently smooth out over the surface of the pastry, making sure to leave at least 1 cm gap around the edges, preferably 2cms, wet this section with either a dash of soy milk, a wet no egg mixture, or plain water
Place second sheet on top, with a fork, gently push down the edges to make a pattern, making sure they are well stuck down or all your jam mixture will ooze out everywhere!

Place pop tarts on a greased tray and bake in oven for 15 - 20 minutes or until going golden brown.
Take out of oven and let cool. And dust with a tiny bit of icing sugar if you have it.

To heat back up for individual use - use your toaster!
Enjoy.

Oh, and I brought these in for my colleague who didn't think you could make pop tarts at home, let alone vegan ones. He was very surprised, and loved them. So there you go!