Homemade Blackberry Bourbon Adult Toaster Pastries

Kellogg’s first started making its trademarked Pop-Tarts in 1964. Since that time, the fruit-filled pastry has turned into a breakfast and snack staple around the world. Everyone has a favorite flavor. For the record, unfrosted strawberry, toasted and topped with a bit of butter is the best. But this homemade blackberry version blows the store bought version out of the water.

This homemade version of the classic breakfast treat is easy to make and tastes way better than the store-bought pastries.

With blackberries coming in hot and fast this time of year, I like to make a homemade version of the venerable pastry. For this recipe, I add a splash of bourbon to the blackberry filling, but you can leave it out if you like and just use an equal amount of water. If you are worried about the alcohol content of the finished product, just know that the cooking process removes most of it anyway.

In the midwest and upper south, blackberries are the perfect filling, but use whatever wild fruit grows in your area.

If you have a favorite pie crust recipe, then by all means use it. But grabbing a box of boxed frozen crusts from the grocery greatly speeds the process, and the results are great either way. Another time saver is to use your air fryer to bake the pop tarts. You can use a parchment lined baking sheet in the oven as well; it just adds a few minutes to the cook time.

If you have the time and a favorite recipe, you can make your own crust, or just pick up some frozen crusts from your local market to speed the recipe along.

Add the blackberries to a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the sugar, bourbon or water, honey, and lemon juice. Bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and maintain a light boil, stirring often. Cook for 15 minutes or until the mixture starts to thicken like jam or jelly. Remove from heat and cool. To make the icing, blend 2 tablespoons of cream cheese with the softened butter, milk, vanilla, confectioners’ sugar, and salt into a thin icing. Set aside. Tip: Transfer the icing into a zip style plastic bag and snip off the corner to make drizzling the icing easy. Set the icing aside.

Add the filling ingredients to a sauce pan and boil until the mixture begins to thicken.

Unroll one of the frozen pie crusts onto a floured surface. Use a rolling pin to flatten and slightly enlarge the pie crust. Use a a pizza cutter or sharp knife to cut out four rectangles roughly 4x6 inches. The actual size isn’t that important, but all the rectangles should be more or less equal in size. Save the trimmed edges.

Cut four rectangles from a sheet of dough, then roll the leftovers to cut additional rectangles.

Repeat the process with the remaining crust. You should have 8 equal-sized rectangles and a pile of edge dough. Roll the edge dough into a ball then use the rolling pin to flatten it out to the same thickness as the dough rectangles. Use the pizza cutter to form 2 additional rectangles for a total of 10.

Spoon 2-3 tablespoons of the blackberry filling onto half of the dough squares. Try to keep the outside edges clean of filling, but if some runs to the edge, it’s no big deal.

Spoon filling into the center of one half of the rectangles.

Brush the outer half inch of the non-fruit rectangles with a bit of egg wash, then flip onto the fruit-filled rectangles. Use a fork to crimp and seal the edges to bond the two dough rectangles together. Brush the surface of each pastry with the remaining egg wash.

Flip the unfilled crust over to cover the filling before crimping the two pieces of dough together with a fork to seal.

Air fry in batches for 10 minutes at 400 degrees. If you prefer to cook the pasty in the oven, simply transfer all 5 to a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes at 375 or until flaky and golden brown.

Air fry or bake until the crust is cooked through and flaky, then cool and apply icing before serving.

Allow the pastries to cool slightly, then squeeze the icing out of the snipped corner of the bag over the pastries in whatever pattern you like.