A Pastry-shaped oxymoron

Moms:

It is getting close to that time of year again.  You know.  The school year.  Please, for the love of your children, suppress the ecstasy you feel when you are reminded of the free days you’ll have once summer vacation is over.

I know.  Why do they call it “vacation?”  It is pure work to have to entertain your kid, your tween, your teen, for 2 1/2 months.

And you’ve seen the commercials for Rice Krispies, Cocoa Puffs, and Toaster Strudels: Kids don’t perform well on hungry stomachs.  The manufacturers urge you to send your kids out the door with a healthy breakfast.  Your kids guilt you into making the aforementioned breakfast sugary-sweet, providing for the ultimate sugar HIGH and subsequent LOW.  You can’t do that to your kids.  But, honestly, can you really deny them the breakfast they crave (sugar sugar sugar)?

What if the kids makes fun of your baby at the bus stop?

So, here I present to you, a pastry-shaped oxymoron (a partially whole grain brown sugar poptart).

That’s right.  That there pastry is a pop-tart.  Good cold or good toasted.  And bad for you like the Kellogg’s variety.  But just a little good for you, too, since the pastry dough isn’t all bad and there’s just a smidge of oats in the filling.

And, of course, you could stop here when making the pastry:

And serve them up naked unfrosted.  Your kids might not like that, though, so I’ve included a cinnamon sugar glaze that hardens for supreme portability to the bus stop.

Half Whole Wheat Pastry Dough
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 t salt
1 t sugar
1 stick very cold butter, cut into chunks
4 T ice water

In a chilled mixing bowl (or a mixing bowl embedded in a nest of frozen corn, carrots, and peas a la yours truly), sift together dry ingredients.  Cut in butter, then add water.  Mix until a dough forms, ensuring that butter remains in pea sized portions throughout the pastry dough.  Form into a disk and refrigerate.

Pop Tart Filling
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup oats
1 t cinnamon

Blend.

Roll pastry dough out into a thin layer.  Cut into 8 rectangles, approximately 3″ x 8″.  Place 1/8 (a healthy tablespoon full) of the filling in the center of the rectangle.  Brush the edges of the dough with water (or beaten egg) and fold over pastry.  Crimp with the edges of a fork.  Prick the top of the pastry dough with a fork to prevent explosions in the oven.  Refrigerate for 30 minutes while oven is preheating to 375*  Bake for 25 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack.

Pop Tart Glaze
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
drops of water to reach desired glaze consistency

Mix until spreadable but not watery.