Pop tarts, the kind that come in the shiny silver wrapper, have a lot of room for improvement. The dough is crumbly and dry, the frosting is way to similar too plastic, and sometimes I’m not even sure if there is actually filling inside?? Let’s just say I was not a fan even as a kid.
But I like the concept, and I know a lot of people are crazy about them. So with the jam-filled pastry reins in my hands I made these Strawberry Banana Pop Tarts to my liking, which means lots of filling, lots of actually creamy frosting, and maybe even some sneaky fruit in the crust. Oh and vegan and gluten-free too!
The pastry dough is a variation on this pie crust recipe but made softer and sweeter with tapioca flour and coconut sugar. I get a lot of questions every time I use tapioca flour about substitutions, and there really is nothing quite like it for gluten free baking. Or at least nothing I’ve found yet. Cornstarch is similar, but still not the same. Tapioca flour (or starch, they’re the same thing) has a glutinous effect that is perfect for keeping the dough sticky and elastic pre-baking and still soft post-baking. I try not to call for too many obscure flours in my recipes, but this one is a must.
A few tips
To make filling and folding and molding and making your pop tarts easier…
–Chill the dough. I didn’t think of this till after I filmed the video for this recipe, but it makes it much easier to work with.
-Build your pop tarts on the pan you are going to bake them on. Just slide the parchment paper you used for rolling right onto your baking sheet and then cut and fold. This will save you the difficulty of trying to transfer them later after they are jam filled pockets of pastry just waiting to spring a leak.
–It’s okay if they aren’t perfect. As you’ll see in the video, some of my dough rectangles tore in the process. But just grab a chunk of dough, flatten it out, stick it on top, and press the edges. You can cut it into a pretty little rectangle afterwards.
–Use a fork to make those classic breakfast pastry patterned edges. The tines of a fork work perfectly, no fancy tool required.
The Glaze
A pop tart is not a pop tart without a sweet white drizzle dancing on top of the otherwise plain-looking pastry. I used coconut whipped cream thinned out with the extra liquid from the can till it’s drizzle-able.
Or you could make a really simple glaze by whisking a little bit of non-dairy milk into powdered sugar.
Or you could opt for a chocolate squiggle on top–a blend of maple syrup and cacao powder.
As long as your pop tart isn’t naked, I’m happy!
Jam options
I used my Easy Strawberry Banana Jam, but here are some other jam flavors and options…
–5-Minute Healthy Pear Jam from Win-Win Food
–Blueberry Fig Jam from Feasting on Fruit
–Raspberry Chia Jam from Nadia’s Healthy Kitchen
–Raw Apricot Jam from Unconventional Baker
Alright enough chatting, let’s make them…
Strawberry Banana Pop Tarts (vegan + GF)
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 4 pop tarts 1x
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cup gluten-free flour (I used King Arthur’s GF Blend)
- 1/2 cup tapioca flour
- 1/4 cup coconut sugar
- 2 ripe bananas (chilled overnight in the fridge)
- 2 tsps baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 batch of my Easy Strawberry Banana Jam (or any jam you like)
Frosting
- 1 can of full fat coconut milk (chilled overnight)
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the GF flour, tapioca flour, coconut sugar, baking powder, and vanilla.
- Add in the chilled banana and use your hands to cut it in and knead until you have a ball of slightly sticky dough. You may need to add a few more tablespoons of flour if it is too sticky.
- I suggest chilling the dough for 2-4 hours before rolling it out to make it easier to work with.
- Preheat the oven to 350F.
- Place the dough onto a sheet of parchment paper, cover with another sheet, and roll it out to 1/4 inch thickness. Peel off the top piece of paper, flip, and peel off the other piece just too loosen them both so it won’t stick later.
- Move the parchment paper and dough onto you baking pan. Cutting them out on the pan will save you having to transfer them later.
- Cut the dough into a rectangle. Cut the rectangle into 4 smaller rectangles.
- Dollop a couple of tablespoons of jam onto one side of each small rectangle.
- Fold the dough over and pinch the edges.
- Use the tines of a fork to crimp the edges.
- Bake for 20 minutes at 350F.
- For the glaze: Scoop out the cream from the can of coconut milk. Whisk, adding in the liquid from the can little by little to achieve a drizzle-able consistency.
- Or see other options in the post above.
- Cool then drizzle with glaze and enjoy!
I didn’t even scroll down before I pinned 😉
You did it! AND you made them strawberry which is a MUST for poptarts! The frosted strawberry classic poptarts are the BOMB the best the only!!!! I just….I just love them (yours I mean..) <3
I had to go strawberry, it’s tradition. Although honestly I think a blueberry one would be even better <3 Blueberry vanilla jam, that would be perfect in there...plus it would be purple 🙂
i’m absolutely IN LOVE with this recipe! Never been a big fan of pop tarts either, they always looked nicer than they actually tasted! I know I would be obsessed with them if they were made using this recipe! Healthy, no oil with such a generous filling! You really are a creative genius Natalie! 😀
Yes! They did always look so deceptively delicious and then you bite in and its just disappointment haha 😀 More filling and fresh frosting and homemade is just always better! Thanks Nadia!
Ohhhh my, you always have such great ideas… This looks amazing!
Thanks Vivian! These were a reader request actually, but I like getting those it’s a fun challenge 🙂
Oh i need these. Yes. No question. Neeeeeeed. I wonder if I could use oat flour instead of GF?
I’m imagining a not so good texture with the oat flour, but you could try it! I’ve found oat flour to not work well in things like this…which makes me sad 🙁
What about using regular AP flour? Would that work?
Yep! And you won’t need the tapioca flour, just all AP will be fine 🙂
Thank you!! Will try and let you know!!
Oh my gosh. I keep meaning to make homemade poptarts, and this recipe looks easier than a lot of the others I’ve been bookmarking! Yessss! I can’t wait to try this!
★★★★★
I can’t say they are “easy” but the ingredients are pretty simple. It’s just the actual construction of the pop tarts that gets a little tricky :/ But totally doable!
These look 10000000x better than real poptarts!! I was never really big on them, but these are a different story <3
Agreed! The packaged ones are funky, I’ve never seen the appeal really :/ But homemade extra-jammy ones, heck yeah!
ummmm YES PLEASE
Haha 😀
I can’t believe that gorgeous glaze is just coconut cream!! Genius!!
It’s my go to white creamy topping for everything 😀 Thanks Sarah!
I grew up on pot tarts. Breakfast every day through junior high *insert monkey hiding face emoji* and I still agree with your assessment about areas of improvement. But when I got the strawberry pop tarts with that pink frosting on top, I was a happy camper. Or s’mores — next favorite. I won’t tell you what lunches were — it gets worse *insert double monkey hiding face emoji*. These look beautiful. The pastry looks great! And thank you for the nod to my jam as an option 🙂
If I had to eat them s’mores was my pick, but don’t feel bad they were one of very few packaged things I didn’t love and beg my mom for constantly 😀 My favorite breakfast was lucky charms…not much better…possibly worse lol. But now I’m wondering what lunches could’ve been…uncrustables? Or lunchables. That’s about the worst I can think of…and i wanted those too!
Nutella 🙂 …on pita.
As a child I really didn’t like food. Mainly I really didn’t like messy food or the feeling of messy food on my hands or plate… I liked candy and cake though, and things that were packaged neatly, so easy fixes those were. And I’ve had more than my share of all those packaged things. And fruit — I’ve always loved my fruit — the rainbow in my otherwise sad eating habits 🙂 So weird (and interesting) thinking about it all now.
Oh my! Nope would not have guessed that 😀 That’s interesting, I loved getting messy with food as a kid. Although I hated foods to mix on my plate, that was a big no. But you still loved fruit, which is lovely. I actually didn’t like fruit very much when I was a kid, so I suppose my tastes have changed a lot too!
Haha, I absolutely LOVED poptarts as a kid, even if they were made from crap, as a kid I didn’t care. I love the brown sugar ones the most…soooo good. I loved to toast them up really brown and oh man, so good. I haven’t had one since I was probably a kid though. I definitely remember the pastry dough portion being really bland and dry though, so the icing on top and the sugary filling always saved the day. I have had on my list forever to create a vegan version and still haven’t gotten around to it. These are a million times prettier and healthier than the crap at the store! People could actually eat these poptarts and not feel guilty at all because they are basically healthy! Way to go!! Your pics are so fruity and pretty too!
I think that was part of my problem, I never toasted them :/ lol But still, they needed more filling. I wasn’t worried at all about the crappy ingredients, I was purely unsatisfied with the taste. Not enough frosting on this breakfast! haha 😀 You have your apple hand pies, I’m sure that dough could easily be modified to be a pop tart! But you aren’t into fruit, so do you mean making a homemade brown sugar one?? That’d be awesome! I’ve never seen a recipe like that!
Oh yes you did! What an awesome recipe this is Natalie! While I hardly ever had pop tarts growing up, I feel I could really get into the healthy adult version. And I’m with you on maybe blueberry filling . . .
Adult pop tarts haha! Yes these pop tarts are SO much more mature than those those silly packaged ones 😀 lol Did you parents try to keep you healthy and away from packaged things too? And my mind somehow always goes blueberry, I have to stop myself form not putting them in every single recipe. Thanks Laura!
Would coconut flour be a good substitute for the gluten free flour? It’s hard to find vegan recipes using coconut flour. This recipe sounds fantastic I’d like to try it out soon 😉
No I don’t think coconut flour will have enough binding ability here, sorry. I find coconut flour fairly hard to work with and it can have a strange taste, that’s why you don’t see me using it often. I’ve had the same container for months because I rarely use it 😀 Arman who blogs at thebigmansworld.com has some vegan recipes using it though if you are interested.
Pop tarts were my favorite as a kid!! Haha!! And strawberry was my pop tart of choice, so these are calling my name! These look amazing and I LOVE how you went crazy with the filling AND the fact that there’s bananas in the dough…fruity perfection!!! I absolutely NEED to try these!!
Really!?! Well maybe my problem was that I always went for the chocolate and dessert ones not the fruit ones, maybe the fruit ones were better…or maybe it was an acquired taste 😀 lol I fully expected these to burst open while baking with all that jam inside, luckily they didn’t! The are rather banana-y, but I personally love that fact 🙂 Thanks Mandy <3
Natalie. Can I call you Nat? Darling, this looks DIVINE! I literally am freaking out inside about this recipe. I have dropped everything from my schedule that does not involve hunting down tapioca flour, making them, and eating them all by myself. Thank you!
xx
Alix
★★★★★
Hahaha it’s a pop tart making mission!! Thank you Alix, I love your excitement about jam filled pastry matters! Sorry to send you on the goose chase for tapioca, I know it’s obscure but it’s necessary here. Unless you just want to use non-GF flour, that would be fine without tapioca flour. And yes of course you can call me Nat 🙂
When you say chilled bananas, do you mean in the fridge or freezer? Xx
★★★★★
Oh sorry, I should specify that better. I mean they’ve been in the fridge overnight or for at least 8 hours.
Yay thanks! I am going to make these on the weekend 🙂
★★★★★
They were a little difficult to make. It was still very sticky after I added extra flour and the parchment thing did not work out, even though I chilled it overnight. However, I just took small amounts of the dough one by one and flattened them into a rectangle shape. I am giving it 5 stars because in the end, they turned out great and did not fall apart and tasted AMAZING.
★★★★★
Hi Lucia! I am so happy they worked for you and taste good even if a little tricky to make 🙂 Getting a dough that is dry enough to roll out yet not overly dry after baked is really hard without oil and with oat flour. My more recent experiments in the world of roll out cookies has taught me that a little coconut butter/nut butter can make it worlds easier though, so if you wanted to try subbing one of those for one of the bananas it might make things a lot easier next time! Thanks fore the feedback 🙂
Hi Natalie.Gluten free flours are,sadly,a no-no for me because of the gums 🙁 so i just tried this with oat flour and the tapioca starch and they totally worked! Soft,fluffy pockets of tenderness.Yum.Though i don’t think they were as good as they could be because i had no bananas so,out of desperation and the need to bake something,i used pureed carrots,about 2/3 cup.Sorta worked,but would be better with a starchy banana 🙂 Oh,and i’m really,really missing your low fat/fat free goods.All these nut butters,coconut,nuts! I can’t eat any of it! 🙁 unfortunately oils and fats give me really bad skin,so i was so elated when i found your blog,but now there’s more fat… Still love you though! It’s just so hard to find low fat,gluten free,vegan deliciousness.
Hi Tanya! I’m so happy the oat + tapioca combo worked for you, I don’t use GF flours very much anymore either just because they all vary so much it’s tricky to call for them in recipes. I like your resourcefulness on the carrot thing, but yes a banana will add much more sweetness. Next time 🙂 And thanks for letting me know on teh low fat recipes. I personally have shifted to eating quite a high fat diet really so naturally my recipes have shifted too, but I will try to keep it in mind and post some lower fat ones too!
Your a superstar Natalie! Thank you for replying so quickly 🙂 (stuffing my face full of poptarts as i’m typing this :D)
could these be made with out sugar? if that were the case these would be a great snack for my two year old.
You could try it, but I worry they will be very bland/cardboard-y without any sweetener😬
Hi Natalie! I just discovered your website and im OBSESSED with all your receipes. I made your mini powdered donuts yesterday and they were heaven sent! Question on this amazing pop tart recipe: Could I use whole wheat flour and could I use date paste instead of coconut sugar? Thank you!!!! Hoping to make this tomorrow 🙂
YAY!! I am so happy you enjoyed the donuts Lena and so happy you found me, welcome😊 Whole wheat flour will definitely work here, but I don’t recommend date paste here it will make the dough too soft/chewy as opposed to crispier like you want for pop tarts. You can try it but the texture won’t be great. Hope that helps, keep me updated!