These strawberry homemade pop tarts have passed all the tests! Gooey maple-sweetened strawberry filling in a flaky grain free pastry crust with a dairy free option. Gluten-free, paleo, kid approved, fun to make and freezable!
This recipe has been SUCH a long time coming! As in, I believe it was on my “to-make” list for a year. That means that every week for a year, I had it on my list for the week, and it just never got done.
I put it off for lots of reasons! The first one being sheer intimidation. There are definitely a lot of steps involved in homemade pop tarts and the thought felt overwhelming!
Second, I was afraid of failing. This is a big one for me when trying out new recipes that can easily go wrong. Truth is, I DID fail on my first batch of these, BADLY! Like, so badly that I actually had to throw the entire batch in the trash, if you can imagine that.
Well, really, they crumbled effortlessly into the trash, and I sadly watched them go! But that’s all part of the job, not my favorite part, but a necessary one!
Within an hour I had moved on to my next batch, fixed the problems (omitted coconut flour!) and made some truly mind-blowing paleo homemade pop tarts.
These pop tarts are big – I made 9 of them and each one is probably two servings, honestly. You can definitely make them smaller if you prefer and have more of them!
The reactions were worth the first batch of tears – every single person in my house couldn’t get enough! I actually had to hide them (including from myself!) because they are just THAT addicting.
The strawberry filling is total perfection and so simple. Just strawberries and maple syrup, cooked up like jam and then pureed with an immersion blender for texture. You can always skip the pureeing part – it’s a personal preference.
The dough, like I mentioned, does not contain coconut flour. I always include coconut flour in my pie crust recipes, but, for this one it just made the dough too crumbly, difficult to work with, and dry in the end.
So, I used a combo of blanched almond and tapioca instead – perfection. I used more tapioca than I thought I needed and it actually was PERFECT!
For the fat, you have 3 options – grass fed butter, ghee, or palm oil shortening. I DO prefer using butter for the flavor, but if you have to go dairy-free you won’t be missing anything! You can also use any combination of those three fats if you want to.
Of course I HAD to include an icing in the recipe, even though it’s entirely optional. I know that this is a decadent treat and adding icing might just take it over the edge, but I’ll leave that up to you.
As with many of my icings, you can use organic powdered sugar (not technically paleo), or you can make your own with maple or coconut sugar. I prefer using maple sugar due to the light color, but it’s up to you.
The homemade powdered sugar works just like store bought to create a nice drizzly sweet icing! As I was eating these, I honestly thought they tasted SO much like original pop tarts. So much so that it was almost scary!
You can also freeze these pop tarts to reheat (in a toaster oven or oven) later on. I don’t recommend using a pop up toaster after freezing them, because I tried it and unfortunately they did crumble a bit.
Are you getting excited yet? We’re about to make the paleo dessert/snack of a lifetime! Thank goodness I finally MADE these homemade pop tarts, they’re well worth the extra work – let’s get started!
Paleo Strawberry Homemade Pop Tarts {GF, DF Option}
Paleo Strawberry Homemade Pop Tarts {GF, DF Option}
Ingredients
Strawberry Filling:
- 2 cups strawberries sliced
- 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
Pastry Crust:
- 2 cups blanched almond flour
- 2 cups tapioca flour Plus more for rolling the dough*
- 1 tsp sea salt fine grain
- 2 Tbsp maple sugar or coconut sugar
- 1 cup (16 Tbsp) grass fed butter (cold, cut into pieces (or ghee, or palm oil shortening, or a mix for a dairy-free option. Butter will yield the best result!)***
- 2 large eggs
Optional Icing:
- 2/3 cup organic powdered sugar (or make your own paleo powdered sugar*)
- 1 Tbsp almond milk or coconut milk
- 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
Instructions
For the Filling:
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Place strawberries and maple syrup in a small saucepan over medium high heat, and bring to a boil. Lower heat to med and allow to boil/strong simmer over heat for 20 minutes or until reduced and thickened, stirring and crushing berries as they cook.
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Optional: once done, use an immersion blender to smooth out the jam even more, or a regular blender if you don’t have an immersion blender. I put my immersion blender right in the saucepan to blend it at the end. Transfer jam to a glass container and allow to cool before using (refrigerating is fine.)
For the Crust:
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In the bowl of a food processor pulse all ingredients EXCEPT eggs to create thick crumbs, then pulse/process in the eggs until a dough forms.
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Gather dough with a spatula and divide into two equal parts. The dough will be sticky. Wrap each one in plastic wrap and flatten into discs, then chill 30 mins or up to overnight.
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Place a sheet of parchment paper on a large cutting board and sprinkle generously with tapioca flour. Place one disc of dough and sprinkle with more tapioca, then another piece of parchment. Roll out the dough, starting from the center and moving outward, into a 9 x 12 “ rectangle (approximately), 1/8-1/4” thick. Use a pizza cutter to clean up the edges of the rectangle.
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If dough became very soft, chill in the fridge freezer for a couple of minutes before proceeding.
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After rolling out, carefully transfer the dough on the parchment (do not separate) to a large baking sheet. Use the pizza cutter to cut dough into 9 rectangles, approximately 3” x 4”. Gently separate the rectangles from one another - 1/2” of space around each one is enough.
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Place the entire baking sheet in the refrigerator while you repeat the steps with the remaining disc of dough (rolling out and cutting into rectangles.
Assemble Pastries:
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Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and place an oven rack in the top half of your oven.
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Spoon about 1 1/2 Tbsp of the jam in the center of the first 9 rectangles, spreading out gently, leaving a 1/2” border dough.
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Carefully place a rectangle from the second disc over each of the first. Use a fork to lightly seal the edges, then prick the top of each pastry to allow steam to release while baking.
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Bake in the preheated oven for 20-22 minutes or until just beginning to turn golden brown. Remove from oven and place entire baking sheet on a wire rack to cool completely.
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While pop tarts cool, whisk together icing ingredients in a small bowl. Drizzle over completely cooled pop tarts, then allow icing to harden for 20 minutes before serving. Enjoy!
Recipe Notes
*Blend 1 cup maple sugar with 1 Tbsp tapioca flour in a food processor until it reaches a powdery consistency.
**The dough will be sticky, but feel free to add ad much tapioca as you need after chilling to roll it out.
***Vegan butter may also be used for a dairy free option
Nutrition
Shop Products and Ingredients:
Want More Paleo Baking Recipes? Try One of These!
Paleo Pumpkin Pie with Crust Recipe
Vanilla Cupcakes with “Buttercream” Frosting
Almond Butter and Jelly Cookie Bars {Paleo, Vegan}
Cranberry Cookie Crumb Bars {Paleo, Nut Free}
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I’m excited about the Pop Tarts! I’m going to make them for my grandkids. Hopefully, they’ll turn out as good as yours look!!
Going try the pop tarts today.
I honestly do not know what a pop tart tastes like and I am 71 years old. However, this recipe has piqued my interest and I will definitely give them a try. I’m certain my husband will love them
Love this recipe! Can’t wait to try it 🙂
Your site, though, is really hard to navigate with all of the ads..so.many.ads….Every photo had an Ad attached to it, the page loaded really slowly, and some of the Ads were not pleasant. Yikes!
Uhh … these look incredible, Michele! ? They look so flaky and delicious. Great work, as always! ? I need these in my life. ?
Can I use coconut oil instead of the butter, ghee, or palm oil shortening? I can’t do dairy, and palm oil shortening isn’t available in Australia (well not readily, and we pay mega bucks for it)
Thank you SO MUCH for taking the time to make these! Pop tarts have been a favorite of mine since I was a kid, and it never even occurred to me to make from scratch. I have honey from my backyard and like to use that for sweetener whenever I can. Would that be an acceptable substitute for maple syrup?
Hi, I know you have worked with chia and flax egg before. Do you think it will work for the egg in this recipe? Thank you for your help. It is not easy having to be egg free!
Those look so good! Do they freeze well?
The dough was a bit tricky to work with, so mine didn’t turn out very pretty… BUT, they tasted fabulous! Flaky and buttery goodness. It is truly an art to bake with natural whole ingredients. Thank you for sharing this recipe!
Made this recipe last night and the taste is truly amazing! Very flaky and buttery crust, truly the best tasting poptart recipe I have tried. However, even after refrigerating the dough for an hour it was too soft to work with. The next time I make these I will refrigerate the dough overnight.
Oh my goodness!! These are divine! I love love love!! It was worth working the pastry to make them into pop tarts, however, I may try them as a jam drop biscuit next time, the pastry isn’t overly sweet and compliments the jam well! My 8 year old son said “are these pop biscuits from The Magic Faraway Tree?” … I looove that association.
It’s worth learning how to work the pastry, I used two sheets of baking paper and rolled it out in between with my rolling pin, I think its the only way you can work with this type of pastry. It would just stick to the rolling pin otherwise.
I agree that is the only way to work with any paleo pastry! I’m so thrilled you enjoyed these!
Made these, just added thinned(with coconut milk) peanut butter to the filling. Turned out exactly as i’d hoped. Labor intensive, yes. But absolutely worth it for my husband to feel like he can eat something normalish 😉
That’s awesome!
I’m trying to make this right now, but using 1 and a 1/2 cup butter is a lot. It’s making the dough super sticky.. am I doing it right?
I had the same problem making these! I added 1 cup of butter and the dough was still crumbly, but after adding the last 1/2 cup it was like a paste, it would be workable after rolling out for about 1 minute out of the freezer… wonder if 1/4 cup of butter would have been better? Still tasted pretty good but had to hand-shape dough balls no way a pizza cutter would work as the dough completely stuck to the parchment.
After making this a few times I still like the result using 1 1/2 cups better than using less – but yes it can be tough to work with even after chilling. Using as much tapioca flour as you need while rolling really helps though.
I fee you, the first batch of pastry was a complete bust! came out like total paste event after chilling it. I just couldn’t make it work. Gonna try again after another trip to the store to pick up more tapioca fllour. Wish me luck
I am curious as well- I went back and added some more of each flour and stuck back in the freezer. I’m hoping this helps…I was wondering if the 1 1/2 cups was correct.
Yes it’s a lot – but after chilling and using some tapioca to help with the stickiness it should work out. You can always add a bit more tapioca for rolling if the dough is still very sticky after chilling.
@terri: Ghee is clarified butter that has had the Casein Proteins removed. I’m on a diet that excludes Dairy products and ghee is allowed in place of butter.
I tried to make these, what a disaster. The pastry didn’t taste right so I went back to see if I missed something and of course I did. It doesn’t help when you have so many adds on your page and they are in between the ingredients. ? what a waste of ingredients ?
@nicole, don’t blame the recipe contributor for your mistake! there are no ads in between, and even if that was the case, you can intelligently click on ‘print this recipe’ on the top, even from your mobile device, and all ads will be gone. I get your frustration, just not how it was directed. hope this helps from now on
The taste is so good but they came out super duper crumbly. Any idea what I could do differently or has this happened to you? Thank you for this recipe either way, it was delicious!
This recipe was amazing altho I didn’t have tapioca flour so I used regular flour. And used store bought jam.
Followed the recipe the rest of the way. We loved them! So flakey and delicious! Definitely a keeper!
Hi! These look great. Do you know if I could sub coconut flour for almond flour (allergic)? Thanks!
I am SO in love with this recipe! I live at a high altitude (almost 6000 ft), and what works best for me is to freeze the dough, then let it defrost mostly, and roll out. It’s brilliant! Incredible recipe. It tasted good, but didn’t work the first couple of times I tried – then I discovered the almond flour I though was blanched wasn’t! New flour = problem solved! Thanks so much for the recipe!!
The crust reminds me of a buttery almond cookie I used to eat at Christmas time. Yum! I forgot to spread the jam, and it did stay still, but it was still very yummy. I subbed cherries and figs for the strawberries. Mine are definitely not beautiful, but who cares when they taste good. Practice will make perfect.
Nice balance of almond meal to Tapioca flour–who would of thought! I used lard, coconut oil, and a couple tablespoons of melted cacao butter. Quite sticky, but you were right on!– use the tapioca flour! Mine are not as pretty as yours. And I probably won’t put the drizzle of powdered sugar on until they are warmed up. I did utilize a mold by Wilton–Hand pie one I had.
Could I use frozen strawberries after they thaw out?
These just cam out of the oven and I couldn’t help myself but try one while the rest cooled… I’m in Heaven! The crust is so flaky and tastes like a shortbread cookie with the right amount of strawberry filling. Haven’t tried it with the icing yet but my 6 year old said they tasted like Cracker Barrel biscuits with jelly 🙂 All that you say, we love these!
Definitely took me a lot longer to make than I expected. The dough was too hard when I let it refrigerate overnight and I had a hard time with my blender getting the butter and flour mixed. It was worth it though!
Love these!
Can I use arrowroot in place of tapioca if I am out?
The dough is a little difficult to work with and very sticky but patience is key even if that means throwing it in the fridge several times while working with it. We loved the end result! My 7 year old cant get enough of them. Thank you for a wonderful paleo recipe which is hard to come by these days!
These pop tarts were absolutely delicious. However, working the dough was difficult. It was so sticky that you can expect a lot of back and forth of placing the dough in and out of the fridge, and I had a lot of trouble sealing the edges with a fork without chunks of dough coming off. While the pop tarts didn’t come out picture perfect, their taste did not disappoint!
What if you dont wanna use eggs. How you incorporate this recipe without eggs
This looks great BUT- any suggestions regarding egg substitutes? Flax vs gelatin?
So delicious. Thank you for this recipe. I appreciate you working out the ingredients and techniques so I can make delicious pop tarts that are safe for my daughter.
What flour can I use instead of almond. My daughter is allergic to treenuts.
Has anyone tried freezing these? Do they freeze well?
Wondering the same….my first batch didn’t stick around long enough to freeze, but I would love to try freezing some to avoid the process of making them again in the near future.
These are AMAZING. I have been craving a pop tart for years and these absolutely hit the spot. The instructions were a little complicated for me seeing as I’m a tad bit new to baking so mine didn’t turn out as beautiful as these but again, the taste was phenomenal!!! Thank you!
I cut the recipe in half to do a “trial run” and made 6 slightly smaller pop tarts. I was too cautious with the strawberry filling amount but they were still delicious! Next time I will definitely chill the dough overnight though to make it easier to handle.
I appreciate people like you who are willing to do the grind to make a recipe for the rest of us to just search for and make! These are delicious! I shared one with my friend’s 9 year old daughter who cannot have much in the way of “fun treats” and she apparently won’t stop talking about them! Happy that I can have this treat and share it with others who are on the same treat struggle bus! Thank you!
Am continuing to make these and have started to add a strong dusting of tapioca flour after mixing the eggs in and before refrigerating just to give it a thicker consistency. I think it helps to make it not so sticky when it comes out of the fridge.
If I could leave 1/2 a star I would, bc it’s that bad to work with. I have been grain free for nearly 12yrs now and NEVER worked with a dough so horrible. DO NOT chill this dough, folks! It’s much more workable before going in the fridge and chilling it just makes it MORE crumbly! Roll it out under some plastic wrap or parchment fresh from blending it bc you won’t get it spread out after it chills, w/out it falling apart all over the place! Now, that’s if you even want to mess with it at all. In my opinion, it’s not worth the hassle, when there are other recipes for paleo dough that is much easier to work with. I just made the mistake of trying this one. Honestly, I think my cat could come up with a better recipe to work with.
Lots of work, but so good that I’m making them again! This time, with a pumpkin filling!
If I wanted to use sugar instead of maple would I sub the same amount or would it change?