I was scrounging around this weekend for a portable, vegan-friendly, nut-free breakfast treat, and these vegan apple pop-tarts were what I was able to come up with – a spiced homemade apple sauce filling, with a orange-zest flavored pastry dough, coated in a lemon drizzle.

Apple Sauce Filling

Ingredients:

• 6-8 Apples – skinned, quartered, and core removed
• 1/4 cup Maple Syrup
• 1/2 cup Orange Juice
• 2 tsp ground Cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground Cloves
• 1/4 tsp ground Allspice
• dash of Salt

Directions:

1. Place all of the above ingredients in a large sauce pan, and bring to boil.
2. Continue to cook until the apples begin to become mushy.  Add small amounts of water if the apples begin to get to dry.
3. Mash the apples with a potato masher or run them through a food mill or food processor.
4. Allow the apple sauce to cool fully before using it to fill the pop-tarts.  I usually stick it in the refrigerator overnight.

Vegan Pop-tart Dough

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Vegetable Shortening
• 3 cups Flour
• 1/2 cup Sugar
• Iced Water
• zest from 1 orange
• 1 tsp Salt

Directions:

1. Stir together the flour, sugar, salt, and orange zest.
2. Use a pastry cutter to cut the shortening into the dry ingredients.
3. Once the dough starts to come together into pea-sized clumps, use a tablespoon to ladle about 8 tbsp of iced water into the dough.  The water should bring the dough together.  Add more water, a couple tablespoons at a time, until the dough comes together.  The dough should be smooth, cool, and dry to touch, not sticky.

Making the Pop-tarts:

Ingredients:

• Flour for rolling and dusting (use sparingly)
• Maple Syrup
• Cinnamon Sugar (combine 3 parts sugar for 1 part cinnamon)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F (177 C).
2. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
3. Divid the dough in half, and store the half you are not working with in the refrigerator.
4. Roll out the dough to 1/8″ thickness.
5. Use a knife to cut the dough into uniform rectangles (~2.5″ x 4″), you might need to use a ruler as a guide.
6. Transfer your rectangles onto the baking sheets.
7. Scoop a heaping tablespoon of the apple filling onto the center of each rectangle.
8. Roll out the second half of dough, and cut out a matching set of rectangles.
9. Cover each filling heaped rectangle with one of your newly rolled rectangles.
10. Use a fork to crimp the edges of each pop-tart, sealing the apple filling inside.
11. Bush the tops of each pop-tart lightly with maple syrup, and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
12. Use a sharp knife to cut three small slashes into the tops of each pop-tart.
13. Bake for about 40 minutes.

Lemon Drizzle:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Powdered Sugar
• 2 tbsp fresh squeezed Lemon Juice

Directions:

1. Stir together the powdered sugar and lemon juice.  Make sure to get rid of the clumps.  If the glaze seems too dry add a little bit more lemon juice, and if it seems too wet add a little more powdered sugar.
2. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled pop-tarts, and allow it to dry.