Cranberry pop tarts

Cranberry pop tarts. These are such a fun and completely delicious treat, particularly in the winter when cranberries are in season. It’s a great recipe for when you’ve got leftover cranberry sauce that you don’t know what to do with. The tart and zingy cranberry sauce is so yummy with the sweet icing. 

Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day, so if I can find fun ways to shake up the routine I will. These are definitely a perfect, breakfast in bed, lazy morning treat. 

The best thing is, you can make them in advance the night before and then bake fresh in the morning. No stress, just a beautiful way to treat yourself to start the day off right. 

Ingredients

340g plain flour

2 large eggs

170g unsalted butter  (fridge cold) 

60g icing sugar

Zest 2 oranges

Pinch of salt

Approx 9 tbsp cranberry sauce (I used my sloe gin cranberry sauce recipe but you can use store bought too if you’re short on time)

For the icing:

200g icing sugar

Zest 1 orange

5-6 tbsp water from recently boiled kettle (keep adding gradually and add extra if needed)

Chopped dried cranberries (optional) sprinkled on top

Makes 8 pop tarts 

(You can easily ½ the quantities if you don’t want such a big batch)

Method for cranberry pop tarts

First, let’s make the pastry. 

This is really simple. Pop the flour, salt, cold butter, icing sugar and orange zest in a food processor. Blitz for a few seconds until you have a mixture that looks like fine breadcrumbs. The butter should be in very small pieces, distributed amongst the flour mix. 

Then crack in 2 eggs and blitz until the pastry begins to come together in one large ball. 

Remove the dough, divide into 2 and then wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for about 30 mins. 

Preheat the oven to 190°C alongside a baking tray the same size that you’ll use to bake the pop tarts. This will help them cook evenly and give you a lovely crispy base.

Now, let’s assemble the cranberry pop tarts

Take each piece of dough then on a floured work surface, thinly roll out the pastry into a large rectangle. Trim the pastry so that you have pretty straight edges and then divide the dough into even rectangles. Do the same for the other piece of dough. If you have any offcuts, save them and repeat this process until you’ve got everything ready. 

Make sure that you have an even number of rectangles – enough for tops and bottoms of the pop tarts. 

Take about a tbsp of cranberry sauce and spread it onto the middle of your pastry. Get a mug of water and, using your finger, wet the sides of the pastry. Then take another rectangle and place on top, pressing down the sides to make sure no sauce escapes when you bake them. 

Take a fork, and seal the edges of the pastry. Take a sharp knife and add three score marks in the centre of the pastry, to help any steam escape in the oven. 

Put the pastry onto a lined baking tray. Repeat for the rest of the tarts. 

Brush the tops of the tarts with milk or egg wash then bake. The lovely thing about this recipe is you can do all this the night before then bake them fresh in the morning if you like. They’ll sit very happily in the fridge. 

Bake for about 15-17 minutes until the pop tarts are cooked well underneath and are a lovely lightly golden brown. 

Once cooked, leave to cool on a wire rack while you make the icing.

Make the icing

Put the icing sugar into a bowl then gradually add the hot water until you get a pouring but not too runny consistency. Add the orange zest and stir together. 

When the pop tarts are cool enough spread a little of the icing on top of each, letting it fall down the sides a bit as it sets. Roughly chop a handful of dried cranberries and sprinkle over the tops of the pastry. 

Leave for about 30 minutes for the icing to set a little. Enjoy.

These are best eaten on the day that they’re baked, but will last a few days stored in an airtight container.

You could also freeze un-iced pastries by tightly wrapping in cling film, which will keep for about 3 months. Then you could defrost in the fridge overnight and decorate when needed.  Alternatively you can flash freeze unbaked pastries, store in a bag and then bake for an extra 10 minutes whenever you want one. 

Want more inspiration to use up cranberry sauce after Christmas? Try our White chocolate and cranberry cupcakes

If you have extra cranberries to use, give our Cranberry and apple curd a try, it’s delicious for breakfast.

On the look out for other breakfast treats? Try our Get up and go granola – homemade breakfast ideas or Chocolate pancakes, delicious