Healthy Pop Tarts Recipe

Yes! Healthy Pop Tarts exist!

I’ve had a huge number of emails from you all asking me to make Clean Eating Pop Tarts. But I’ve avoided it for a long time because I’ve found that when people are used to eating the junk food version of something, the clean version of it usually doesn’t make the grade. People’s taste buds get used to the sugary, white floury, starchy, chemically tasting products and after that, healthy just doesn’t seem to measure up in the taste department.

3 Clean Eating Pop Tarts lined up on a long, white platter. They have a honey glaze over the top.

One reader emailed me a recipe from Caplan Miller Events and asked if I could “clean it up”.  Truth be told, I didn’t think I would like them very much. I’ve never had a real Pop Tart, and frankly, the idea is rather revolting, especially first thing in the morning. Ick.

But, not being one to turn down a challenge in the kitchen, I figured it was time to at least give it a try. So I started making them, and had them all lined up nicely on my cookie sheet. Some of the filling had oozed out the sides while I was crimping the edges, so they had a bit of a  pinkish hue to them (you’ll see them below).

My then-husband promptly walked into the kitchen and said, “Um…. I’ve never seen pink ravioli before…”.

I just know he was muttering a prayer under his breath for God to rescue him from dinner that night. I should have played along and served them with spinach.

But long story short, I did enjoy these. All by themselves, they were not very sweet. But with the honey as a topping, they were downright delicious.

Great for breakfast or a snack on the go!

Healthy Muffin Recipes

Healthy Pop Tarts Recipe

Copyright Information For The Gracious Pantry
Clean Eating Pop Tarts Recipe

Healthy Pop Tarts

If you’re having a hard time giving up store-bought pop tarts, try making your own instead! Delicious and so much better for you without all those chemicals!
No ratings yet
Print Pin Rate Add to Collection
Course: Breakfast, Dessert
Cuisine: American
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour
Servings: 12 pop tarts
Calories: 217kcal

Ingredients

DOUGH INGREDIENTS

  • 2 ¾ cups whole wheat pastry flour
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
  • 1 tbsp. stevia powder (pure stevia, nothing else added)
  • ½ cup oil (light in flavor like grapeseed or safflower oil)
  • ½ cup almond milk (unsweetened, or regular milk) + extra if needed

FILLING INGREDIENTS

  • 3 tbsp. honey
  • 2 tbsp. cornstarch (or tapioca starch)
  • 2 tbsp. water
  • 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
  • 1 lb. frozen strawberries (defrosted and chopped – has a higher water content than fresh berries)

GLAZE INGREDIENTS

  • cup Greek yogurt
  • honey to taste
  • lemon juice (to taste)
  • water (optional for consistency)
  • OR, omit the above glaze ingredients and just use honey (pictured above)

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  • Combine all dough ingredients in a large mixing bowl and get your hand dirty! Mix and knead until you have a nice, firm yet soft dough. If the dough crumbles, add more milk, 1 tablespoon at a time. Just be sure to knead the dough really well after each tablespoon you add. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a sticky mess.
  • In a medium mixing bowl, combine all the filling ingredients using a whisk. Set aside.
  • Working with small pieces of the dough (I used about 1/3 at a time), roll it out until it’s about 1/8 inch thick (The thinner the better). I rolled mine on parchment paper out of habit. Do what works for you.
    Clean Eating Pop Tarts
  • Cut the dough into rectangles that are approximately 2 inches by 4 inches. I eyeballed this, I didn’t measure. If you have a rectangular cookie cutter, that would work great here as well. If not, just use a knife like I did. They don’t have to be exact.
    Clean Eating Pop Tarts
  • Peel away the rough edges so you are left with a lovely piece of dough like this. (Beautiful, isn’t it?)
  • Separate your pieces so you have some room to work.
    Clean Eating Pop Tarts
  • Using a small spoon, spoon the filling onto half of the pieces of dough, being sure to leave some room around the edge for crimping.
    Clean Eating Pop Tarts
  • Place the “non-berry” dough pieces on top of the pieces with filling.
    Clean Eating Pop Tarts
  • Using a fork, crimp your edges to seal the pop tarts. If some leaks out of the sides, don’t panic. Just crimp.
    Clean Eating Recipes
  • Place all of your pop tarts on an oiled cookie sheet and place in the oven for 20-30 minutes. They should have a nice, golden brown appearance when finished. Remember, you are not really baking the insides. You just want the dough to be cooked. (I tried baking them on parchment, as you can see in the photo above, and I would not recommend it. The dough did not cook correctly.)
  • While the pop tarts are in the oven, mix your glaze if you want to use it. I only used honey on mine because I don’t eat dairy. But if you do, now would be the time to put whisk all those ingredients together in a bowl.
  • Remove from oven and allow to cool. You will need a fine edged spatula to remove these from the cookie sheet. Especially if you had any filling leak out the sides.
  • If using honey as a topping, simply drizzle it on. If you are using the glaze, brush it on with a basting brush or spoon it on with a small spoon and allow about an hour for it to dry. Placing it in the fridge during this time would be a good idea.
  • NOTE: I do NOT recommend putting these in the toaster to warm them up. Especially once the honey or glaze is on. Just microwave them for 10-20 seconds to warm them up.

Notes

Please note that the nutrition data is a ballpark figure. Exact data is not possible.

Nutrition

Serving: 1pop tart | Calories: 217kcal | Carbohydrates: 28g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 10g | Sodium: 176mg | Potassium: 165mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 5g | Vitamin A: 5IU | Vitamin C: 22.2mg | Calcium: 34mg | Iron: 1.2mg

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

67 Comments

  1. Can’t wait to try these! I’m desperately trying to clean up my six year olds eating and pop tarts are hard to replace. Off to get some whole wheat pastry dough to give these a whirl!

    1. The Gracious Pantry says:

      Annette – They are a bit different, so don’t be surprised if it doesn’t go over the first time. I think it’s harder for kids than it is for us. Give it time and keep trying. Eventually, changes will start to happen. One thing I have always done with Mini Chef is enforce the “Thank You Bite” rule. He has to take one “thank you bite” of anything I make. If he doesn’t like it, then he doesn’t have to eat it. But repeated exposure to a variety of foods has really helped open his palate, so he’s more likely to enjoy a variety of foods as he gets older.

  2. They were a huge success! Both my 6 & 2 year old asked for more. They thought it was pretty cool mom was making pop tarts. We enforce the thank you bite rule as well. So they’re pretty good at trying new things. My concern was the difference between the highly processed sweetness of a pop tart and the natural sweetness of these. I was glad to see the concern was unfounded. These will be replacing store bought pop tarts at our house!

    1. The Gracious Pantry says:

      Annette – I can’t tell you how happy that makes me!!! 😀

  3. Mary Jaglowitz says:

    Oh my goodness, I just found your site. Fantastic as I am trying hard to eat healthy and I am diabetic. I have lost 90 lbs. in the past two years. It has made me so aware of what I put in my mouth. Your receipes are great. I am going to try your “pop tarts” for a special treat. By the way the real ones taste like cardboard. Yick!

    1. The Gracious Pantry says:

      Mary – Wow! Congrats! It’s not easy to lose that kind of weight. Great job! Let me know how you like the pop tarts!

  4. Will this recipe work with coconut flour?

    1. The Gracious Pantry says:

      Sierra – Sadly, no. It would have to be completely reformulated.

  5. Hello! These look amazing! I hope to try them. I will be grateful for your answers:
    – how much ml/grams in one cup? there are different cups out there, and it’s important to know how much grams does one cup contain;
    – does the pastry bake well enough? I have had many disastrous moments with whole wheat flour – could never get a tasty pastry, and it would usually be very hard and not thoroughly baked inside.

    Thank you very much!
    Best,
    Alla

    1. The Gracious Pantry says:

      Alla – I did not convert to metric for this recipe, so I’m not really sure. There are 236.6 ml in 1 cup, but the mg’s would be different. The pastry baked just fine for me, although it is more dense than a regular pastry because it’s whole grain.

      1. Tiffany, thank you very much for your answer. I will do my best to pick up a correct cup and thus measure all ingredients ) Thank you! ) Best wishes!

        1. The Gracious Pantry says:

          Alla – Let me know how it turns out! 🙂

  6. Wow, I made this recipe and it was great! but I did a few things different.
    I instead of the glaze I used regular sunbeam bread (2 slices) and rather than making the glaze I used peanut butter & jelly.
    What I did was I got the bread and placed it onto a napkin, then spread the peanut butter on one slice, then after that I spread the jelly on the other. Then I went ahead and thought it would be a good idea to put the to together. and wallah! I made this recipe! (with some additives)

    1. The Gracious Pantry says:

      Nate – Hahaha!!!! Wow! How creative you are!! You should really start your own blog!!

  7. How many does this recipe make?

    1. The Gracious Pantry says:

      Julia – Depends on the size you make them.

      1. Okay, any idea how many your recipe makes roughly? If cut to the size you specified.

        1. The Gracious Pantry says:

          Julia – I got 12. 4 per 1/3 of the dough.