These strawberry homemade pop tarts have passed all the tests! Gooey maple-sweetened strawberry filling in a flaky grain free pastry crust with a dairy free option. Gluten-free, paleo, kid approved, fun to make and freezable!
This recipe has been SUCH a long time coming! As in, I believe it was on my “to-make” list for a year. That means that every week for a year, I had it on my list for the week, and it just never got done.
I put it off for lots of reasons! The first one being sheer intimidation. There are definitely a lot of steps involved in homemade pop tarts and the thought felt overwhelming!
Second, I was afraid of failing. This is a big one for me when trying out new recipes that can easily go wrong. Truth is, I DID fail on my first batch of these, BADLY! Like, so badly that I actually had to throw the entire batch in the trash, if you can imagine that.
Well, really, they crumbled effortlessly into the trash, and I sadly watched them go! But that’s all part of the job, not my favorite part, but a necessary one!
Within an hour I had moved on to my next batch, fixed the problems (omitted coconut flour!) and made some truly mind-blowing paleo homemade pop tarts.
These pop tarts are big – I made 9 of them and each one is probably two servings, honestly. You can definitely make them smaller if you prefer and have more of them!
The reactions were worth the first batch of tears – every single person in my house couldn’t get enough! I actually had to hide them (including from myself!) because they are just THAT addicting.
The strawberry filling is total perfection and so simple. Just strawberries and maple syrup, cooked up like jam and then pureed with an immersion blender for texture. You can always skip the pureeing part – it’s a personal preference.
The dough, like I mentioned, does not contain coconut flour. I always include coconut flour in my pie crust recipes, but, for this one it just made the dough too crumbly, difficult to work with, and dry in the end.
So, I used a combo of blanched almond and tapioca instead – perfection. I used more tapioca than I thought I needed and it actually was PERFECT!
For the fat, you have 3 options – grass fed butter, ghee, or palm oil shortening. I DO prefer using butter for the flavor, but if you have to go dairy-free you won’t be missing anything! You can also use any combination of those three fats if you want to.
Of course I HAD to include an icing in the recipe, even though it’s entirely optional. I know that this is a decadent treat and adding icing might just take it over the edge, but I’ll leave that up to you.
As with many of my icings, you can use organic powdered sugar (not technically paleo), or you can make your own with maple or coconut sugar. I prefer using maple sugar due to the light color, but it’s up to you.
The homemade powdered sugar works just like store bought to create a nice drizzly sweet icing! As I was eating these, I honestly thought they tasted SO much like original pop tarts. So much so that it was almost scary!
You can also freeze these pop tarts to reheat (in a toaster oven or oven) later on. I don’t recommend using a pop up toaster after freezing them, because I tried it and unfortunately they did crumble a bit.
Are you getting excited yet? We’re about to make the paleo dessert/snack of a lifetime! Thank goodness I finally MADE these homemade pop tarts, they’re well worth the extra work – let’s get started!
Paleo Strawberry Homemade Pop Tarts {GF, DF Option}
Paleo Strawberry Homemade Pop Tarts {GF, DF Option}
Ingredients
Strawberry Filling:
- 2 cups strawberries sliced
- 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
Pastry Crust:
- 2 cups blanched almond flour
- 2 cups tapioca flour Plus more for rolling the dough*
- 1 tsp sea salt fine grain
- 2 Tbsp maple sugar or coconut sugar
- 1 cup (16 Tbsp) grass fed butter (cold, cut into pieces (or ghee, or palm oil shortening, or a mix for a dairy-free option. Butter will yield the best result!)***
- 2 large eggs
Optional Icing:
- 2/3 cup organic powdered sugar (or make your own paleo powdered sugar*)
- 1 Tbsp almond milk or coconut milk
- 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
Instructions
For the Filling:
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Place strawberries and maple syrup in a small saucepan over medium high heat, and bring to a boil. Lower heat to med and allow to boil/strong simmer over heat for 20 minutes or until reduced and thickened, stirring and crushing berries as they cook.
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Optional: once done, use an immersion blender to smooth out the jam even more, or a regular blender if you don’t have an immersion blender. I put my immersion blender right in the saucepan to blend it at the end. Transfer jam to a glass container and allow to cool before using (refrigerating is fine.)
For the Crust:
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In the bowl of a food processor pulse all ingredients EXCEPT eggs to create thick crumbs, then pulse/process in the eggs until a dough forms.
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Gather dough with a spatula and divide into two equal parts. The dough will be sticky. Wrap each one in plastic wrap and flatten into discs, then chill 30 mins or up to overnight.
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Place a sheet of parchment paper on a large cutting board and sprinkle generously with tapioca flour. Place one disc of dough and sprinkle with more tapioca, then another piece of parchment. Roll out the dough, starting from the center and moving outward, into a 9 x 12 “ rectangle (approximately), 1/8-1/4” thick. Use a pizza cutter to clean up the edges of the rectangle.
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If dough became very soft, chill in the fridge freezer for a couple of minutes before proceeding.
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After rolling out, carefully transfer the dough on the parchment (do not separate) to a large baking sheet. Use the pizza cutter to cut dough into 9 rectangles, approximately 3” x 4”. Gently separate the rectangles from one another - 1/2” of space around each one is enough.
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Place the entire baking sheet in the refrigerator while you repeat the steps with the remaining disc of dough (rolling out and cutting into rectangles.
Assemble Pastries:
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Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and place an oven rack in the top half of your oven.
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Spoon about 1 1/2 Tbsp of the jam in the center of the first 9 rectangles, spreading out gently, leaving a 1/2” border dough.
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Carefully place a rectangle from the second disc over each of the first. Use a fork to lightly seal the edges, then prick the top of each pastry to allow steam to release while baking.
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Bake in the preheated oven for 20-22 minutes or until just beginning to turn golden brown. Remove from oven and place entire baking sheet on a wire rack to cool completely.
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While pop tarts cool, whisk together icing ingredients in a small bowl. Drizzle over completely cooled pop tarts, then allow icing to harden for 20 minutes before serving. Enjoy!
Recipe Notes
*Blend 1 cup maple sugar with 1 Tbsp tapioca flour in a food processor until it reaches a powdery consistency.
**The dough will be sticky, but feel free to add ad much tapioca as you need after chilling to roll it out.
***Vegan butter may also be used for a dairy free option
Nutrition
Shop Products and Ingredients:
Want More Paleo Baking Recipes? Try One of These!
Paleo Pumpkin Pie with Crust Recipe
Vanilla Cupcakes with “Buttercream” Frosting
Almond Butter and Jelly Cookie Bars {Paleo, Vegan}
Cranberry Cookie Crumb Bars {Paleo, Nut Free}
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I am SO in love with this recipe! I live at a high altitude (almost 6000 ft), and what works best for me is to freeze the dough, then let it defrost mostly, and roll out. It’s brilliant! Incredible recipe. It tasted good, but didn’t work the first couple of times I tried – then I discovered the almond flour I though was blanched wasn’t! New flour = problem solved! Thanks so much for the recipe!!
The crust reminds me of a buttery almond cookie I used to eat at Christmas time. Yum! I forgot to spread the jam, and it did stay still, but it was still very yummy. I subbed cherries and figs for the strawberries. Mine are definitely not beautiful, but who cares when they taste good. Practice will make perfect.
Nice balance of almond meal to Tapioca flour–who would of thought! I used lard, coconut oil, and a couple tablespoons of melted cacao butter. Quite sticky, but you were right on!– use the tapioca flour! Mine are not as pretty as yours. And I probably won’t put the drizzle of powdered sugar on until they are warmed up. I did utilize a mold by Wilton–Hand pie one I had.
Could I use frozen strawberries after they thaw out?
These just cam out of the oven and I couldn’t help myself but try one while the rest cooled… I’m in Heaven! The crust is so flaky and tastes like a shortbread cookie with the right amount of strawberry filling. Haven’t tried it with the icing yet but my 6 year old said they tasted like Cracker Barrel biscuits with jelly 🙂 All that you say, we love these!
Definitely took me a lot longer to make than I expected. The dough was too hard when I let it refrigerate overnight and I had a hard time with my blender getting the butter and flour mixed. It was worth it though!
Love these!
Can I use arrowroot in place of tapioca if I am out?
The dough is a little difficult to work with and very sticky but patience is key even if that means throwing it in the fridge several times while working with it. We loved the end result! My 7 year old cant get enough of them. Thank you for a wonderful paleo recipe which is hard to come by these days!
These pop tarts were absolutely delicious. However, working the dough was difficult. It was so sticky that you can expect a lot of back and forth of placing the dough in and out of the fridge, and I had a lot of trouble sealing the edges with a fork without chunks of dough coming off. While the pop tarts didn’t come out picture perfect, their taste did not disappoint!
What if you dont wanna use eggs. How you incorporate this recipe without eggs