I have a really great recipe for homemade Poptarts that I will share soon, but they are kind of a lot of work. This recipe is a super quick and easy version of that one. Two layers of buttery cookie with a sweet delicious layer of jam in the middle, topped with a thin layer of icing and of course, sprinkles.
This recipe took me about 5 minutes to put together and about 20 minutes to bake. It uses jarred jam so super easy. The original recipe used strawberry, to mimic a strawberry poptart, but I used raspberry instead because we are semi obsessed with raspberry anything.
The icing for these is simple vanilla powdered sugar icing and you can use any sprinkles you like! These were tasty, especially considering how little work they were. I didn’t feel like they really resembled poptarts at all, but they still were good.
I under baked mine a bit because it was difficult to tell when the bottom crust was done. The top fully cooked when the bottom layer was still a bit raw in the middle, so I’d cook until they look done on top (20 min or so) and then continue cooking another 5-8 minutes, probably with foil over the top to prevent the top from getting too dark.
Poptart Cookie Bars
Ingredients
For the cookie layer:
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter room temp
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 large eggs room temp
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 1/2 cups + 2 tbsp AP flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 2/3 cup whatever flavor jam you like I used raspberry
For the icing:
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1-2 tbsp milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- sprinkles for decorating
Instructions
- Heat oven to 375. Line an 8×8 cake pan with parchment paper.
- In a stand mixer with paddle, cream the butter, sugar and vanilla on medium until light and fluffy, scraping down the bowl a few times, about 5 minutes.
- Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each.
- Press half the dough into the bottom of the pan. It is sticky so using clean wet hands helps spread it around without it sticking to your fingers.
- Spread the jam over the bottom layer of dough.
- Using wet hands again, pick up 2 tbsp size amounts of dough and stretch them a bit thin so you can place them on the top. Once you place them all, gently smooth the dough. You don't want to disturb the jam. Alternatively, you can place each 1/2 of the dough spread out in 2 8×8 pans and freeze them for about 15 minutes then stack in one of the pans with the jam in between.
- Bake for 20-23 minutes until set and browned on top. When the top looks nicely browned, cover with foil loosely and bake 5-8 more minutes to be sure the bottom crust is also fully cooked.
- Cool for 10 minutes remove from the pan by lifting the parchment. Cool fully on a wire rack and then top with glaze and sprinkles.