Vegetarian Chocolate Pop Tarts!

I used to love chocolate pop tarts when I was younger.  I wasn’t allowed them very often but they were a real treat when I had them.  I’ve been a veggie for over 8 years now and so haven’t eaten any pop tarts.  They contain beef gelatin, quite honestly if I was going to break my vegetarianism for a breakfast (which I’m not) I’d be eating a bacon sandwich not having a slightly meaty chocolate treat.  So you can imagine my joy when I happened to find this recipe for Homemade chocolate fudge pop tarts!  And they don’t have a hint of cow in them!

I found the recipe a little tricky to start with as the measurements are given in cups, sticks of butter etc so I needed to do some research to get all of the amounts right!  I’ve changed the recipe into grams and millilitres for others like me who need weights!  I also changed the icing recipe slightly as I hadn’t heard of one of the ingredients in the original recipe.

This recipe made thirteen pop tarts although I have to warn you that they worked out at 350 calories per pop tart so I wouldn’t recommend that you start eating them regularly!

I used:

Fudge Filling:

• 30g of cocoa powder
• 50g of soft brown sugar
• 160ml of semi skimmed milk
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 185g of milk chocolate
• 30g of butter
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

Pastry:

• 490g of plain flour
• 15g of cocoa powder
• 10g of caster sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 165g of butter
• 110ml of water

Icing:

• 150g of icing sugar
• 10g of cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
• 5ml of water
• 15g of melted milk chocolate
• Coarse sugar to finish

I started by making the fudge filling.  I put the cocoa powder, sugar, milk, salt and half of the chocolate into a pan and heated it over a medium heat until all of the chocolate had melted, stirring all the time.  I then turned the heat up so that the mixture was just bubbling, I continued to stir the mixture at this heat for five minutes.  Next I removed the pan from the heat and added the rest of the chocolate, the butter and the vanilla, stirring until the mixture became smooth.  You can then leave the fudge filling to cool while you get on with the rest.   

I used the thermomix for the next part as I find that easier but you can mix it by hand or with the pastry attachment on a food mixer.  You need to combine the flour, cocoa powder, sugar and salt then add chunks of butter.  The mixture should be a bit like breadcrumbs and at this point you can begin to add the water, add it gradually and stop once it forms a dough.  I used all 110ml, organic flours often need more water than non organic so you may need to add slightly more or less.  You want quite a dry dough that is just clinging together.  It looks a bit like chocolate crispy cakes!  I chilled my dough in the fridge for half an hour.  

Next you will need to roll your dough out on a lightly floured surface.  I roped Paul in to help me with this bit as I find rolling out quite hard.  You need the dough to be fairly thin and to cut rectangles that are about 10cm x 15cm.     

Pop the dough rectangle onto a baking tray and add a few teaspoons of the fudge filling.  It’s really important to try to get a good seal when you close your pop tarts!  Some of mine went better than others and I had some that leaked or popped open in the oven.  I used the back of a fork to try to make sure they were sealed but may try using my fingers next time!    

The pop tarts need to be baked at 180C for 12 minutes.  Once they’ve cooked they need to cool completely before the next stage.     

To make the icing you need to mix the ingredients together.  I mixed mine over a bowl of hot water to make sure that the chocolate stayed melted while I was mixing.  Once you have a smooth, spreadable mixture you just spread it onto your cooled pop tarts, I used the back of a spoon.  If you want to you can sprinkle your pop tarts with coarse sugar to give them that authentic pop tart look!  I found it really hard to find this sugar and ended up buying it on amazon.  You need to leave the pop tarts to harden completely, this took about an hour and a half.      

If you want to reheat your pop tarts you can do so by putting them on top of the toaster, don’t put them inside it!  We also have an oven that has an option to only heat from below and this worked really well.  Enjoy!  But don’t eat too many at once!