RECIPE: Raspberry Bourbon Poptarts

I love poptarts. Well, I love them like I love Sex and the City 2. It’s enjoyable while watching it, but after I’m like “whyyyyyyyyy did I do that?” That’s how poptarts make me feel; they are always a good idea until you finish one. Poptarts are the Charlotte of the not-breakfast-food-for-breakfast world; so sweet that you enjoy their company for the first two minutes, and then you just want to vomit. Poptarts should totally be part of the next Alanis single since they aren’t really ironic, just nonsensical, like everything else in the song — I mean, WOO 90s NOSTALGIA!

Okay, I’ve gone completely off-topic here, which I suppose is not completely unexpected. Let’s try this again: Homemade poptarts are breakfast meets dessert meets bourbon. The perfect before work breakfast. Okay, maybe not, but they are probably still better for you than the poptarts you buy in the store and just try and find the raspberry bourbon poptarts flavor when you go, people will look at you like you are crazy. So a normal day at the grocery store, right?

This recipe for Raspberry Bourbon Poptarts is like one of the easiest homemade poptarts recipes ever. Mix some jam with other stuff and sandwich it between two pieces of pie dough. Make it even easier by using store-bought pie crusts. That will make the lazy factor of this recipe like a seven. Out of what I don’t know, because you know, I’m too lazy to figure that out yet, but they are less lazy that premade poptarts. Unless you don’t have any and need to drive to the store, then homemade poptarts have the potential to be the less lazy option. I’m going to stop thinking about this now.

INGREDIENTS FOR RASPBERRY BOURBON POPTARTS

• 1/2 Cup Raspberry Jam
• 2 Tablespoons Bourbon
• 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1 Cup AP Flour
• 1 Stick Unsalted Butter
• 1/2 Teaspoon Kosher Salt
• Cold Water
• 1 Cup Powdered Sugar (Optional)

DIRECTIONS FOR RASPBERRY BOURBON POPTARTS

1. Mix flour and salt in a large bowl with a fork. Cut butter into 1/2 inch squares and, using a pastry cutter, mix butter into the flour. You will want your butter pieces to range in size from a pea to, a kidney bean? The size of half a raspberry, I guess? The point is, you want some small pieces and larger pieces.
2. Add in 1/4 cup of water and stir with a spatula. Keep adding water, a little bit at a time, until the dough easily comes together. If you are considering that mixing this dough may count as your exercise for the day, then you need to add more water. Add too much water? Sprinkle in a little more flour. Just pretend you are Julia Child and not Martha Stewart while making this pie dough.
3. Wrap dough ball in plastic wrap and flatten into a shape that looks like you were trying to make a disk, but really looks nothing like one. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
4. While the dough is chilling, heat raspberry jam, bourbon, and vanilla in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until warm enough to stir everything together. Set aside to cool.
5. Preheat oven to 400º. Flour some a clean, flat surface with enough flour that your dough won’t stick. Sprinkle a little flour on top of your dough and also flour your rolling pin. Roll dough out into a square-like shape that is about 16 inches x 12 inches, trimming the edges slightly if you need to. Using some sort of cutting object (I used a pizza cutter), cut your dough into 12 semi-even pieces.
6. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper or a slipat. Carefully place six of the pieces of dough on the pan. Evenly distribute jam across the six pieces of dough and spread it out, leaving some space around the edge. Fill a small bowl with cold water, and one-by-one, dab water around the outside of the dough and place one of the non-jammed pieces on top, pressing the edges together with the back of a fork to seal. Repeat for each poptart.
7. Take your fork and poke a few holes in the top of each poptart or be ready to clean up a jamsplosion in your oven. Bake poptarts for 15 – 17 minutes, or until the tops are starting to brown. Remove from oven and let cool!
8. If you are a fan of the unfrosted poptarts, you are in luck, because you can eat them now! Prefer the frosted kind? Once completely cool, add powdered sugar to a bowl and slowly add water, stirring until you have a thick icing. You will want it thick enough that you will need to smear it around a little, but not so thin that it runs right off the edges.
9. Decorate! I thinned out the icing a little, added some food coloring, and drizzled it over the top.
10. Eat! I mean, if you already haven’t. Try to remember that you’ve just made what are essentially mini pies stuffed with jam and alcohol, but also that real poptarts are breakfast foods so they must be good for you. Right?