Recipe: Homemade Toaster Pastries
One of the fun things about putting together recipes is that you never know how they’ll turn out. Sometimes they are awesomesauce, other times, not so good. The recipe featured in this post turned out, in my opinion, 50% good. That is, half of the finished product was deelish, and I had to throw the other half out. Intrigued yet?
It all started when I got the grand idea in my head to make toaster pastries (you know, eerily similar to Pop Tarts 
) for my coworkers. As with all best-laid plans, something of course had to go awry…
The idea was simple enough – 24 toaster pastries, 1/2 chocolate cherry and 1/2 blackberry with lemon glaze. Since it was a weeknight, I was making it even simpler by using store-bought preserves instead of making them from scratch (which is really easy, actually, but anyhoo). You can even see in my ingredients photo the confectioners sugar and lemon for the glaze, and the blackberry jam.
Well that all went down the drain when the blackberry pastries decided to leak all over the oven, resulting in smells-like-burning in the kitchen and hollow shells of the toaster pastries that once were. Sad. So what’s left is the chocolate cherry pastries, the recipe for which I’m sharing with you today. Still following? Phew! Alrightie then – let’s get started.
Makes 24 pastries:
You will need:
6 cups flour
1.5 teaspoon salt
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened and cut into pieces
16 tablespoons ice water
1 jar of jam of your choice (I used cherry and blackberry)
1 cup of chocolate chips (for filling)
1/2 cup of chocolate chips (for topping)
1. Combine flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the butter and mix with a pastry blender.
No one ever said this was healthy…
Also, pasty blender? Most fun tool ever! You can use two forks if you don’t have one, but I’d recommend the splurge – it’s usually a few bucks 
2. Add one tablespoon of ice water at a time, tossing with the butter and flour mixture. Continue to add water until all of the flour and butter mixture is moistened and a dough forms (approximately 16 tablespoons total).
3. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and roll to 1/8 inch thickness.
4. Cut dough into pop-tart sized rectangles (err, mine were about 3x5in I think). Place a tablespoon of filling in the center of a dough rectangle and cover with another rectangle, crimping the edges with a fork. Repeat until all of the dough has been used.
5. Arrange the pastries on a baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes. Cool in pan for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Melt remaining chocolate chips either over a double boiler, or if feeling particularly low-key, the microwave. Drizzle chocolate over pop tarts for a finishing touch and allow to dry completely.
So I wouldn’t say these were the best things ever, but they were pretty and a somewhat healthier (in that you know more of what’s going into it) alternative to the traditional branded toaster pastry. Just be careful of the blackberry jam, sneaky little bugger.
Have you ever had a baking mishap? Care to share?
Those look delish!
I've just started baking, but I have made casseroles in the past that boiled over the edges and onto the bottom of the oven. =\ Talk about a pain in the butt to remove super baked on gunk. Ugh!
1Well, even if they aren't the best thing ever, they still look so delicious. I want to eat one!
2Look amazing and perfect I love them!! gloria
3wow these look really good. I want some toaster strudels now for some reason. And you're right, 4 sticks of butter, not very healthy but probably very good.
4Chocolate cherry filling? Yum!
xoxo,
5Chic 'n Cheap Living
Oh my! Looks delicious!
6Those look delicious! I wish I had the patience to make them!
7Okay, you make this sound so easy I have to try and make them on my own.
8I think I have to try this. Minus the cherry and plus more chocolate. Does that negate everything else?
9Baking mishap? What? Never…
I must say that the leaky/exploding recipes are the ones that bum me out the most, just because of the clean-up involved after.
These look so yummy! With cherries everywhere right now (literally being sold on every street corner it seems!) I need some more cherry ideas!
10This looks wonderful, I love first of all that it is homemade, and filling well that is another story!
)) I love itttt!!!!
11I so need to do this. They sound delish and look so cute!
12the ones you showed us look yum. and I'm digging your unique flavor combos (even though the bberry one didn't turn out!)
13They look so much better than the pop tarts I made!
14dude, you cook for your co-workers?! can i be your co-worker? :3 those look fab!
15those look great, i'd love to be one of your coworkers. but what i'm really mesmerized by is that magic dough rolling out thingy that you have.
16I love that you thought of this idea on your own and put it together…congrats and props to you! PS I think this looks tasty and would love to try it with my stepdaughters! They made their dad a cake for his bday..thanks for the wishes btw! I have to post it, they did really well!
We followed a recipe or so we thought, from the back of a box to make cookies…well some how they ended up tasting more like muffins than cookies! LOL!
17he he, fun cooking adventure. I love experimenting too!
18I've wanted to make these for a while but seem to talk myself out of it. Yours look great.
19Wow these look delicious, I love how you made them yourself
20Awesomesauce! So glad you chose this word to describe your delicious looking pastries! I've been looking for ways to use it in real life! I've tried other "poptart" recipes before but i will most definitely be giving yours a try now!
21These look amazing! I used to love pop tarts but I find them too sweet now. I need to try making my own soon since I can adjust the sweetness to my taste
.
22The ones in the picture look SO good. I really want to try one!
23this does sound like a genious idea, i've been seeing them all over… just need to find time to make them! glad half turned out fabulous
24Yum! I love the chocolate cherry combo!
25