Strawberry Nutella Poptarts

Valentine's Day came early to the Solomon household in the form of these Strawberry Nutella Poptarts (or Sweetie Pies, I've heard them called) that I made for Drew's coworkers!  I've seen several variations of these cuties on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a whirl.  Drew's parents come next week (woohoo!) and his team at work is about to be disbanding so I thought I'd start a week early.

I believed these would be very simple to make, since they only contain 6 ingredients, but they turned out to be a little labor intensive.  No matter.  I have all the time in the world!  And they probably would be a tiny bit easier in a standard sized kitchen and not a closet sized one, but thats ok too.

I looked at several recipes and kinda made up my own.  Here we go!

The cast of characters: 2 boxes of pie dough (or Shortcrust Sheets if you're in Europe), nutella, strawberry jam/jelly/preserves, a heart cookie cutter, and maybe an egg and some coarse sugar (which I forgot here).

So...begin by taking out your pie dough and rolling it out even thinner than it is.  If you don't have a rolling pin like me, use a wine bottle!

Sorry not sorry.

It works just as well AND you're recycling!

So here we have it.

Begin cutting heart shapes out of the dough in the most space-saving way possible.

Et voila.  

Remove the excess dough (to fold up and reroll in a bit) and place your pretty dough hearts on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Now for the fun stuff: dunk your tiny spoon/knife into the nutella (while trying not to eat it) and spread a generous teaspoon or so onto the center of each dough heart.

Yummm!

Then take your strawberry jam/jelly/preserves and spread another teaspoon or so on top of the nutella.

Oh baby.

Before, during, or after this filling process, you'll want to be rolling out more dough and cutting more hearts.  For the hearts that you'll be using for the topping, you'll want to simply add a poke of the fork to the center of each one.  I guess to let it breath while baking.  Or something.

Take some water....

And moisten the edge of each heart with water all the way around.

Take your poked dough heart topper and softly lay it over the filling, and press gently to seal it all in.

Then you can press the sealed edges with the fork tines all around the border.

Prettttty!

I decided to give each heart a little egg wash (an egg yolk and some water) before popping them into the oven.  (And I naturally had to use my finger to do it again cause I don't have a pastry brush.  Whoops.)

Sprinkle them lightly with some coarse sugar if you have it!  Fine granulated sugar works just as well though.

This is my disheveled mess of a kitchen.  Just for fun.

They're ready to go!

Now from the three recipes I combined, each one had a different cooking temperature (varying from 350° to 425°) and time (between 12 and 26 minutes).  I became stressed immediately and my mother was nowhere to be found on Viber - so I experimented.  I turned the oven to 375° and tried different cooking lengths.  I finally settled on 375° for 15 minutes, with a potential minute or two extra.

This is a bit of a messy batch.  I'll just have to keep them at home and eat them I guess.

Now you can sprinkle powdered sugar over the tops of them (I used this pretty plastic strainer) to make them look extra beautiful.

And then put them in your favorite tupperware container for your husband to take to work!

My general consenesus/opinion: they're festive, fun, and cute, but not the best things I've ever made.  They're good ENOUGH but...I think I should have added more filling (even though I'm not sure they could have held more) and I ate them the next day and I think they taste better heated.  Maybe a little too doughy?  Maybe I overcooked them?  Not sure.  I mean they're really good, don't me wrong, and Drew's people are loving them, but...they need some work.  But I decided to post them anyway because they're too adorable and fun not to!

This is the recipe I mostly used, but here's another one that I thought was lovely too.  And this one, using real strawberries.  Anyway, try them and let me know if yours come out delicious!

Happy early Valentine's Day!