When I was in middle school, breakfast often was eaten on the go, and very often meant raspberry poptarts. I’d unwrap the silver foil package and drop both poptarts in the toaster oven, and then brush my teeth and hair (using different brushes, of course), and pack my school bag.
My mom would have left for work about the time she woke me up, so I was responsible for getting myself fed and out the door. I’d carefully tear off two squares of paper towels, and wrap the hot raspberry tarts in them, and chew as I walked the half mile or so to school.
By the time I arrived at the middle school, I would be licking the frosting off the paper towel and my fingers, and head into home room class, high and jittery on sugar and chemical additives.
Man, I loved those poptarts.
When I was in my early 20s, before I had to go gluten-free for my health, I switched to the Nature’s Choice organic poptarts. I felt so virtuous about my decision to eat “healthy,” but I still scarfed down those poptarts the same way I had as a child.
Of course, when I first went gluten-free nine years ago, there wasn’t anything like this available.
And what was available, wasn’t a treat for the senses. So after graduating from Le Cordon Bleu, I started developing my own recipes, but made them all gluten-free.
I hit upon a super tasty pie crust that was built with a blend of 5 different flours, plus additional ingredients. It is super flaky and buttery and delicious, and we still use it at Kyra’s Bake Shop today for all our pies, but it’s really finicky and difficult to work with. Plus, the millet flour in the crust starts to have a chemical reaction with the butter, and develops a cheesy-like scent and flavor, which means that you must bake or freeze that particular dough within 20 minutes of combining the ingredients.
- 1 1/4 cup cassava flour + more for rolling out, if needed
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup butter or Spectrum Organic Shortening
- 1/2-3/4 cup water, depending on the humidity and weather. Should be a dough, and not a batter (plus more water for sealing the pastries together)
- 1/2 cup jam of choice
- 3/4 cup powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon water
- Optional: sprinkles or sanding sugar
- In the bowl of a food processor, mix together the cassava flour, sugar, xanthan gum, salt, and butter. Add the water and pulse to combine. You may need a tablespoon extra, if a dough does not come together.
- Preheat the oven to 425 and line 2 baking pans with parchment paper.
- Roll out half the dough using additional cassava flour, if needed to prevent sticking.
- Cut out desired shapes and sizes. You can easily reroll scraps (Add a little sprinkling of water if the dough is crumbling or hard to stick together).
- Using a flat pancake spatula, transfer the first batch of the cut pieces to the baking pans, and put a dollop of jam in the very center.
- Dip your clean finger into the extra quantity of water and run your finger around the edges of each pastry to dampen it. Using the spatula, cover the jammed pastry bottom with a second piece of pastry.
- Gently press down on the center of the pastry to gently smoosh the jam and spread it evenly onto the pastry bottom. Press your finger down around the edges to seal or crimp the pastry halves together. (I like to use a fork.)
- Bake until firm to the touch and golden brown, about 28 minutes.
- Let cool completely before glazing.
- Whisk together the powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and water until smooth and shiny.
- Drizzle the glaze over each poptart pastry. Sprinkle with sanding sugar or sprinkles, if using.
- Let set until dry, about 30 minutes.
These look amazing. I’ve been following Cassava Flour on Instagram as well and, until now, hadn’t felt the need to try out this flour. Definitely doing it now. Thanks for this recipe.
You’re welcome! I hope you like it! It’s slightly crisp around the edges and has a toothsome pull to it…
[…] know how I posted my Grain-Free PopTart recipe the other day? Sadie, the lovely force who gave birth to Otto (both the child the company is named […]
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A little confused on the double butter (1/2 cup & 3/4 cup) i am guessing vegan and non vegan. can you please clarify. thank you!
OH my goodness. Thank you for bringing that to my attention! My site crashed last week and in a frenzy to repost all the recipes, I must have made a mistake. There should only be 1/2 C of butter or shortening in the poptarts! I’ve edited the recipe so it reads correctly now. Make them and let me know what you think!
How much water do we use? I thought it was listed the other day, but don’t see it now. Thanks!! They look delish
You just solved my mystery, Dawn! I had listed butter, and then butter (but they were different amounts) and confused Megan… I just realized that the second “butter” should read Water. Recipe is edited and updated now! Thank you!
Thanks!! Mine are in the oven right now
Fabulous! And how did they turn out?
An impressive share! I have just forwarded this onto a co-worker who has been conducting a little
homework on this. And he in fact bought me breakfast simply
because I stumbled upon it for him… lol. So allow me to reword this….
Thanks for the meal!! But yeah, thanx for spending some time to discuss this topic here on your website.
I tried this recipe today and it came out beautiful. It was easy to make and delicious. I made one change though. I created a lemon glaze by substituting the water and vanilla for fresh swueezed lemon juice. (I ran out of vanilla). Tangy addition.
Squeezed
That sounds delightful! I love lemon!
Did you use cold butter?
I always use room temperature (softened) butter, unless the recipe states otherwise! If using the food processor, you could certainly use cold butter (like with pie crust), but it’s not necessary here.
These look amazing and I’m so excited to try them! I was wondering, though, how do they keep in the freezer? Can you freeze the dough and make batches later in time? I know the otto’s cassava flour can be finicky about different conditions. I’m assuming they wouldn’t last more than three or four days in an air-tight bag, especially with how tasty they look!
Hi Lia,
These keep well in an airtight container for a couple days, but I haven’t tried freezing them. I have, however, make other doughs with cassava flour and frozen them BEFORE baking, and they work JUST FINE! You could easily double the recipe, since it only makes about 9-10 poptart pastries, and freeze all but a few before you bake. Then, when you go to bake it, just add a few minutes to the bake time!
Let me know how it turns out!
How do you measure your cassava flour? Do you fluff, scoop and sweep with a measuring cup or do you weigh it? Thanks for the recipe!!
HA. You’re going to shake your head, but when I’m baking at home, I’m SUPER lazy and write my recipes to be as minimal work as possible. I scoop and sweep with the measuring cup! Of course, weighing your ingredients is always the most accurate (and what we use at the bake shop).
Wow! Just made these and it was by far the best AIP treat I’ve had! Even the family loved them. The dough was easy to work with and they came out gorgeous. I used the palm shortening and maple sugar for AIP and used blueberries straight off my uncle’s farm. Delish!
OH that sounds delish, Wendy! I’m glad you enjoyed!!!
I followed the recipe, and the dough was like batter! Next time I will try with 1/4 C water instead or 3/4 C. It was really impossible to handle.
Hmm, how strange. Did you use Otto’s Cassava flour? And what’s your elevation? Those are two factors that I could see affecting the consistency of the dough. I use 3/4 cup of warm water (and drizzle it over the top of the dough in the food processor, before pulsing again). I’m sorry you had trouble with it! Did you use room temperature butter?
I am making these now and had to check the comments because 1/4 c. Water made a soft dough. Strange! I used ottos, but my palm shortening is tropical traditions…don’t know if that makes a difference. To add that last 1/2c. Water would make a runny batter for sure!
Hmm, I know that humidity outside will definitely play a role in this, but I will ALSO amend the recipe amounts. Thank you for the heads up!
Excellent recipe! But what’s the reason for using the xanthum gum? I’m hoping I can sub chia seeds or some other substitute because I already did my grocery shopping and I’d like to make these with something I have at home already. I’ve read that chia seeds, ground flax meal, and agar agar are good substitutes but I just wanted to know the reason behind using xanthum so that I can make the best choice.
Hi Lauren,
The xanthan gum acts as a binder and provides structure for the pastry dough. Chia sees, flax meal, and agar are decent replacements for eggs (which can also bind), but typically act differently than xanthan gum. However, I’d say to give it a try and report back with the results and let us know which you used and how it worked. If you use chia seeds, get white chia and grind to a powder first (otherwise you’ll have black speckles in your dough, and it looks vaguely like bugs…)
Can you substitute all and flour or an organic gluten free flour blend?
I haven’t tried every gf flour blend out there, and they contain different ingredients, but I’d say it’s worth a try. Let me know which one you use, and how you liked the results. If it contains binders, you can omit the xanthan gum I call for (if you’re using that version). Good luck!
This recipe looks amazing! I ordered my cassava flour today, can’t wait to try it. My favorite pop tarts were the cinnamon ones so I will try a cinnamon glaze filling.
Do you think I could use solid coconut oil instead of the butter/shortening?
Hi Rachel, you probably could use solid coconut oil, but the moisture content is slightly different between that and shortening/butter. As far as the saturated fat content in each: there are 12 g per tablespoon of saturated fat in coconut oil, and only 7 grams per tablespoon in butter. (For contrast, shortening only has 3 grams of sat. fat per tablespoon, so your best bet, if you’re not using butter, is to do an equal blend of coconut oil and shortening).
If you use just coconut oil, you may find your pastry to be rather greasy.
Thanks! I ended up buying palm kernel oil to use. I’ve made these 4 times now I think. Sooooooo good!! Mostly with jam, once I used pumpkin pie filling and that was good too. Next I want to use this crust recipe (minus the sugar) to make chicken pot pie and possibly calzones :))