Chocolate Covered Strawberry Pop-Tarts From Scratch

I really like of Pop-Tarts, so when I saw a recipe for making them from scratch, I knew I had to try.

I used a basic pastry dough recipe from Flour by Joanne Chang, and then put homemade strawberry balsamic jam between two rectangles of it.  I then baked it and coated the pastries with chocolate glaze and sprinkles.

It wasn't really a Pop-tart, but it was delicious.  They reminded me of flakier, butterier versions of the Pillsbury Toaster Strudel.  But of course, these were much better than those treats you get from the freezer.  

These do require a little time and effort to make.  You have to refrigerate the dough for at least four hours before using it, and I suggest that if you have  warm kitchen, you should return the dough to the refrigerator a couple of times while you're cutting out rectangles.  Otherwise, the butter will melt and it'll be much harder to make  a good looking toaster pastry.

You can use store-bought jam, but I decided to make my own jam from fresh strawberries and balsamic vinegar.  The vinegar really brings out the sweetness from the strawberries.

The result has a texture and flavor similar to that of a croissant, only it's not as soft on the inside. I also love the strawberry filling combined with the chocolatey glaze.  I'm definitely going to make these again.  You can mix it up and use any fillings and glazes you want.

Enjoy!

To make the jam: cook the strawberries with the sugar and vinegar.

It's ready when it looks like this.

Here's the cooled jam, ready to use.

I stored my jam in a Smucker's strawberry jam jar.  (Very resourceful, I know)

To make the dough, mix cold butter pieces with the dry ingredients until incorporated. 

Then stir in egg yolks and milk until it forms a shaggy dough.

Place the dough on an unfloured surface.  Form a tight mound.

Starting from the top of the mound, slide your palm down the mound, flattening the dough.  Repeat for all sides., until you have a flat dough with smears of butter. 

Gather up the dough, cover in plastic wrap, press into a disk , and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or up to a couple of days.

Divide the dough in half and roll each half into a rectangle.

Score one rectangle into 8 smaller rectangles and brush this with egg.

Put on some jam.

Place the other sheet of dough on top, cut into 8 rectangles, then bake.


Let the pastries cool.


Whisk together the glaze.


Pour the glaze on the pastries, put on some sprinkles, let the glaze set, and enjoy!

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Pop-Tarts

makes 8 large pastries

adapted from Flour by Joanne Chang

Ingredients

For the Pastry Dough:

1-3/4 cups (245g) all-purpose flour

1 tbs sugar

1 tsp coarse salt

1 cup (2 sticks/288g) cold unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces

2 egg yolks

3 tbs cold milk

For the Filling:

Strawberry balsamic jam (recipe below) or other strawberry jam

For the Glaze:

1/2 cup confectioners sugar

1/4 cup water

1 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled

To Finish:

1 egg, beaten

sprinkles (optional)

Directions

1. Make the pastry dough: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt.  Mix in the cold butter pieces until the flour is clumpy and there are pecan-sized pieces of butter visible.  Whisk together the egg yolks and milk in a separate bowl, and then add to the flour mixture.  Mix for a few seconds until incorporated and the dough looks shaggy.  On an unfloured surface, form the dough into a tight mound.  Starting from the top, slide your palm down the sides, pressing the dough flat until the butter is smeared and the dough comes together.  Gather the dough into a ball, then wrap in plastic wrap and press into a disk 1" thick.  Refrigerate for at least 4 hours.
2. Split the pastry dough in half.  Keeping the other half refrigerated, place on half on a floured surface. Place a sheet of plastic wrap on top and roll the dough into a 14" by 11" rectangle.  Return this half to the refrigerator and roll out the other half of the dough to the same dimensions.  With a knife, score one sheet of dough into 8 smaller 3-1/2" x 5-1/2" rectangles.  Brush this dough with beaten egg and place 2 tbs of jam into the center of each small rectangle.  Carefully place the other sheet of dough on top and lightly pres down.  Cut the dough into 8 rectangles, following the score marks you made.  
3. Place each rectangle on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 350*F for 30-40 minutes, until the pastries are light golden brown.  Let cool for half an hour.  
4. Make the glaze: whisk all the the ingredients for the glaze together in a small bowl until smooth and pourable.
5. Pour the glaze on each cooled pastry and then sprinkle the pastries with sprinkles, if desired.  Allow the glaze to set for 10-15 minutes.  
6. Store pastries in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days. 

Strawberry Balsamic Jam 

recipe adapted from Savory Sweet Life

Ingredients

2 cups chopped strawberries

1 cup sugar

2 tbs balsamic vinegar

Directions

1. Add the chopped strawberries, sugar, and balsamic vinegar to a large pot. Simmer until strawberries are tender, about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. 
2. If you have an immersion blender, puree strawberries right in the pot until slightly smooth but still slightly chunky. If you don’t have an immersion blender, transfer the mixture to a food processor or blender and pulse until desired consistency, then add the mixture back to the pot.
3. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil, and cook for 30 minutes, allowing the mixture to thicken. Stir frequently to ensure the mixture doesn’t burn on the bottom of the pot. It's ready when it's thick enough that when you stir, you can see the bottom of the pot.  

Bubble Tea from Scratch

     You've all heard of bubble tea, right?  I've always enjoyed it at the stand in the mall, especially after 7th grade when I last visited China.  Now, every time I see a new bubble tea place, I have to try it.  I've had hot, cold, taro-flavored, lychee-flavored, and any other type or flavor of bubble tea you could think of.  I can't get enough of that creamy tea flavor and the feeling you get when you suck a tapioca pearl through a big, colorful straw.
      So I decided to make myself some bubble tea at home.  I've made the milk tea part before, but not the tapioca pearls.  The milk tea is basically milk, black tea, and sugar mixed together and chilled.  The tapioca pearls are just tapioca starch (or flour) mixed with hot water and cooked in a pot of water and brown sugar. The tapioca pearls turn out wonderfully chewy and with just the right amount of sweetness.  Of course, you could just by tapioca pearls from the store and cook them.

       If you're wondering how they make fancy flavors like taro at stores: they make it from a special flavoring powder you can buy online.  This "original" flavor tastes just as good, though.

What tapioca starch looks like. You can find it in Asian groceries.

Tapioca Pearl Dough

Tapioca pearls before cooking.

To suck up the tapioca pearls, you'll need some fat straws, which I got from Bed Bath and Beyond.  Or you can drink the tea first, and then spoon up the pearls.  You can drink this warm, or chill it to make it cold.
         If you want to make the pearls ahead of time, cook them as directed and then put them in a seal-able container along with some sugar syrup (1 cup water + 1/2 cup brown sugar boiled together until sticky).

          So, with this recipe, you can whip up some fantastic bubble tea any time you want from the comfort of your own home.  And you don't have to pay all that money they charge at stores.  Enjoy!

Cooking the pearls.

Finished pearls (made from scratch)

Bubbles in black tea.

Add caption

Adding the milk.

Finished bubble tea.

Bubble Tea

recipe makes 1 serving (about 2 cups)

adapted from All Recipes

Ingredients

1/3 cup dried tapioca pearls (see recipe below for how to make them from scratch)

2 cups water

1 tsp or 1/4 cup brown sugar (use the bigger amount for white tapioca, the lesser for black tapioca)

1 cup brewed black tea (chill it for cold bubble tea)

2-3 tbs milk

4 tsp sugar 

ice cubes, optional

Directions

1. In a saucepan, bring the water and sugar to a boil and add the tapioca pearls.  Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook the tapioca, stirring occasionally, for about half an hour, until they are soft and chewy all the way through.  Spoon the pearls into cold water so they don't stick together.
2. In a tall glass, spoon in the tapioca pearls, then pour in the tea.  Mix in the milk and add ice cubes if desired.

Tapioca Pears

makes about 2 cups pearls

Ingredients

1 cup tapioca starch or tapioca flour

1/3 to 1/2 cup boiling water

1 cup Brown Sugar

About 5 cups additional water, for cooking

Directions

1. In a large bowl, quickly mix together the tapioca flour and boiling water to form a firm dough, adding more water if it is too dry.  You can add food coloring if you want colorful pearls.
2. Knead the dough in the bowl until it is smooth and stretchy.  
3. On a piece of wax paper or a board, roll the dough into thin ropes.  Tear a small, dime-sized piece off of one rope and, between the palms of your hands, roll it into a ball.  Cover the dough you aren't using with plastic wrap so it doesn't dry out.  You can keep the finished balls uncovered.  Repeat with the rest of the dough.
4. Let the small spheres dry out, uncovered, for at least 2 hours, or up to a day.
5. Bring about 5 cups of water to a boil and stir in the brown sugar.  Then add the tapioca pearls and lower the heat to a simmer.  Cook, stirring occasionally and adding more water if the mixture gets too thick.  Cook until transparent (30min-1hr).  Then, transfer the pearls into cold water so that they don't stick together.  
6. If you want to save them for later, place in a seal-able container with the sugar-syrup you cooked them in.  You can also use the syrup to sweeten your bubble tea.
7. If you want to use these to make bubble tea, go immediately to step two in the recipe above. 

Confetti Cake from Scratch with Strawberry Buttercream

Cake before being decorated with fondant

     Back in the days before I'd ever had a home-made from-scratch birthday cake, my favorite cake was the Funfetti cake I helped my mom make from the box mix.  As my taste for box mix faded, however, one thing remained: my absolute love for sprinkles.

   I love sprinkles.  They come in every shape, size, color, and even flavor.  When I go to the grocery store and the bakery section sets out a couple of tubs of sprinkles for a dollar, I immediately grab them. (Here's something you may not know: the bakery section in your grocery store will probably sell you some sprinkles for cheap if you ask. Also, you can make your own sprinkles or buy really fun shapes like dinosaur sprinkles online.) For the cake, regular rainbow jimmies work best because they stay in the batter better and their colors spread into little bubbles of joy.

   Yes, I have a weakness for sprinkles.  So for my brother's birthday cake, I wanted to give him something fun and colorful: Funfetti cake.  Only instead of using mix, I made it from scratch, which is a million times better, trust me.  It also lacks all those bad artificial flavors and preservatives. I adapted the recipe from a standard vanilla cake recipe, and I added sprinkles and a bit of almond extract. It turned out delicious.

    This was my favorite part: dumping all the sprinkles in.  I used all the rainbow jimmies I had, and I was debating whether or not to use all of them. I ended up dumping them all in.

YES

Prepared pan

    I really like how the buttercream turned out.  Smooth, creamy, and with a very nice strawberry flavor.  It's like strawberry ice cream that doesn't melt.  Also, it goes perfectly with the cake.

Strawberry Buttercream

Frosting the Cake

   This post is all about the inside cake.  If you want to see the finished, decorated cake, check the next post.
Here's the recipe, enjoy!

Confetti Cake from Scratch

Makes one 8" 2 layer cake

adapted from Sweetapolita

Ingredients

5 large egg whites (150g), room temperature

1c whole milk (237 ml), room temperature

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/4 tsp almond extract

3 cups (345 g) cake flour, sifted

1 3/4 cups (350 g) sugar

1 tbs + 1 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks, 170g) unsalted butter, cut into cubes and at room temperature

Rainbow Jimmies (I used 1 1/2 small bottles, 175g or 2.6oz.)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350*F and grease two 8" pans with butter and dust with flour.  Then add a circle of parchment paper to the bottom and butter and flour that.  Tap out excess flour.
2. In a large bowl, add sifted flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.  Whisk or mix with a mixer on low until well combined and fluffy.
3. In a small bowl, mix egg whites with extracts and 1/4 cup of the milk.
4. Add cubed butter and remaining 3/4 cups milk to the dry ingredients. Mix until moistened. With a mixer on medium speed, mix for about 1.5 minutes.
5. Scraping the bowl, add the egg mixture in 3 batches. Mix for 20 seconds after each addition.
6. Add sprinkles and mix until combined.
7. Spread batter evenly among the pans. Bake in preheated oven for 25-35 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.  Then let cool on a wire rack 10-20 minutes.
8. Loosen the sides of the cake from the pan with a spatula. Invert onto a wire rack and flip so it's top is facing up. Let cool completely, then wrap with plastic wrap and place in a refrigerator or freeze for 30 min before frosting.
9. Trim the tops of the cake so the layers are even.  Frost with buttercream (recipe below). Decorate if desired.
10. The cake is best eaten on the same day. (Since it's a butter cake, it can get dry if not stored properly.) Wrap with plastic wrap and keep at room temperature for up to 2 days, refrigerate for up to 5 days, or freeze up to 2 months.  Enjoy!

Strawberry Buttercream

makes enough to frost and fill one cake or frost 24 cupcakes

Ingredients

4 sticks butter (1lb), at room temperature

2 tsp vanilla extract

2/3 cups (7 oz) strawberry preserves 

pinch of salt

4 cups confectioners sugar, sifted

Directions

1. Beat butter for 3 minutes until fluffy.
2. Add strawberry preserves, vanilla, and pinch of salt and beat until well combined.
3. Gradually add sugar and beat until fluffy and desired consistency is reached.