Blueberry therapy: Baked Oatmeal and Homemade Pop Tarts
Now is about the time of year when I’m ready for summer again. I know it’s not rational, but I always feel like winter should be over after Christmas. Yet we have at least three months before it starts getting warm enough for me. I find myself dreaming about sunnier days and drafting my summer bucket list. One activity that’s always on the list is blueberry picking. Every year we visit (a number of times) Bybee Nims Farms for fresh blueberries. We pack our freezer full so that in the middle of the winter we can treat ourselves to some blueberry therapy. Blueberry pancakes and muffins are a given, but when I saw Karista Bennett's recipe for Oregon Blueberry Cardamom Baked Oatmeal, I decided Washington Blueberry Cardamom Baked Oatmeal needed to happen! Once the blueberry discussion started, my slightly blueberry-obsessed husband suggested that I make homemade blueberry pop tarts. That’s the only nudge I needed.
Blueberry Cardamom Baked Oatmeal
First, the blueberry oatmeal. I only recently discovered Karista when my husband gave me The Oregon Farm Table Cookbook for Christmas. She posted the oatmeal recipe earlier this month and I immediately knew I wanted to try it.
Bubbling blueberries surrounded by oats and cardamom.
One more look at those blues!
I used whole milk and butter in mine, but you can use a milk alternative and coconut oil if avoiding dairy. The cardamom with the blueberries was a lovely taste combo. With every bite I kept saying, “Mmm that tastes good. I like the cardamom.” She suggests maple syrup or whipped cream as toppings, but I simple poured a little half and half over mine and it was perfect. This is an easy pop-in-the-oven dish and would be great as a make-ahead breakfast. It warms up nicely in an oven-safe dish covered with foil at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. I know because I had it three times.
Homemade Blueberry Cardamom Pop Tarts
Next up, the pop tarts. One of my favorite childhood breakfast memories is scrambled eggs and a Kellogg’s Frosted Pop-Tart! I remember it being a special breakfast for the first day of school. We always had strawberry or brown sugar cinnamon. A child of the 70s. Turns out my husband also has fond memories of pop tarts. His favorite was – you guessed it – blueberry. We never had blueberry in our house so I had to look it up. I discovered that Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts were officially released in 1967 in four flavors and blueberry was one of them, along with strawberry, brown sugar cinnamon and apple currant (who liked that?). Then I had to go looking for the ingredients. That blue filling? Dried blueberries, dried grapes and dried apples. Well, I knew my version would be 100 percent blueberries … with some cardamom. Fancy fancy.
I looked at a variety of recipes to figure out how I wanted to attack these. There are basically three parts: blueberry filling, crust or dough and the glaze. For the blueberry filling I put the ingredients listed below in a sauce pan and simmered for 10-15 minutes, smashing some berries with the back of a spoon, but making sure to leave some berries whole. Let it cool completely. Or even refrigerate overnight. It needs to be thick enough to not run to the edges of the dough.
Blueberry filling:
1 1b. frozen blueberries
Zest from ½ a lemon (I threw in some orange peel because I didn’t have enough lemon)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1-2 teaspoons cardamom
¼ cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
Attempt No. 1:
Everything I found online about making homemade pop tarts used a form of pie crust dough. I ended up using one with all butter (for the taste) and some sugar (for tenderness). I loosely followed this recipe and kept all the ingredients really cold including the sheet pans. I put my butter in the freezer for 20-30 minutes and then grated it with a box grater. I used my food processor to mix it, adding a little ice water at a time. Ah, but then I had a heck of a time handling the dough and getting it off the counter to the sheet pan. Once I rescued my dough, I sealed them good with water, my fingers and a fork.
The Verdict: They tasted delicious but more like blueberry hand pies. The crust was nice and flaky. The downside was that the bottoms got soggy the next day and were difficult to toast. And I should have added a little more cardamom to get the flavor I was going after. However, they didn’t look like the original. Kellogg’s originals don’t have fork tine marks and the egg yolk wash made them way too yellow.
Attempt No. 1 with the flaky pie crust and blueberry powder glaze.
Attempt No. 2
Before trying again, I read up on pie crust. In Kate McDermott’s Pie Camp book, she talks about a “short tender crust” that sounded more like what I was after - tender but more crumbly. According to Food Science: The Anatomy of a Pie Crust, sugar can make the pie dough so tender that it's hard to roll out and transfer to your pan without breaking (exactly the problem I’d had) and egg makes the dough more pliable and easy to roll out. Clearly I need to attend Pie Camp as this is a skill I have not mastered. Then I came across this recipe called Mealy Pie Dough (better than the name sounds!). It’s described as more like a shortbread crust and the recipe includes an egg. So more of a short tender crust. This dough was much easier to work with and simple to make in my stand mixer. I put it in the freezer all day and then formed pop tarts and put back in freezer for several hours. I also was very careful to seal with my fingers (checked them all twice) but not use a fork and skipped the egg wash.
The Verdict: The texture was more what I was looking for; they are crisper and break in two like a pop tart and no soggy bottoms. However almost all of them cracked and had some blueberry leakage from cracks in the top. Not a big deal. I let them cool completely and peeled off excess blueberry from the edges. Oh and I used the rest of my blueberry mixture, which ended up being enough for both batches
Attempt No. 2 with a crisper crust and frosting and sprinkles to mimic the real deal.
Some hints:
Make sure to not overfill when assembling the pop tarts. I cut mine 3” x 4” and used one tablespoon of blueberry filling per pop tart.
Wet the edges about a ½ inch all around with water and seal with your fingers. You can go back and crimp with fork if you’d like to ensure they’re sealed.
If you’re baking the pop tarts from the freezer (which is what I did the second time around), bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes. Keep an eye on them.
For the glaze, I added Heirloom Blueberry Powder to a glaze of 1 cup powdered sugar and 2+ Tbs milk. For the white frosting, I used a 1/2 cup powdered sugar and 2 Tablespoons of cream with a splash of vanilla extract. Add the liquid a little at a time until you reach the desired consistency.
You can use your favorite pie crust recipe or even a store-bought refrigerated dough.
So after three mornings of blueberry oatmeal and two rounds of pop tarts, I’ve had enough therapy and I’m happy to say we’ve had several days of beautiful blue winter skies.
Read more about our summer blueberry adventures.
I alternated between frosting and drizzling the glaze, and made some to look like authentic pop tarts with sprinkles.