A Triple Chocolate Pop Tart that is loaded with chocolate inside and out. The crust has a nice chocolate flavor from cocoa powder, the filling is a nutty decadent chocolate hazelnut spread and the top is drizzled with melted dark chocolate. A truly chocolate lovers pop tart dream in every bite. This is a great all year round pop tart and can be customized to fit different occasions. Make it for Valentines Day, use it for Holiday Baking, or an Easter themed pop tart like this one. All you need is few colorful sprinkle to change the mood of this cookie and make it for Easter. Check it out!

Easter is just around the corner, and just like Holiday when I often say it is never too early to plan on what to bake. Early bird catches the worms, in this case think of getting more pop tarts instead 🙂 I try to make few dessert post for Easter every year if I can and I am always looking for something fun and interesting. But not only this, I also wanted something that can be an all around dessert, not just for Easter. Although I have customized this to give a festive Easter feel, this Chocolate Pop Tart can be serve all year round. You do not have to wait for Easter to make this. Make it anytime you feel like a chocolate craving, make it now 🙂

The Pie Dough

I always use all butter in all my pie dough, I find that it provides better taste, flavor and texture. I know some pie dough recipe sometimes uses a combination of butter and shortening, but I’ve never tried that kind of variation. But there is one thing that I added here that I don’t normally add in my regular pie dough, I’ve added a small amount of cream to make the dough soft and creamy.  The addition of cream aims to counter the dryness of the cocoa powder. Also, the cream made the crust creamy and it helped avoid cracking. The last thing that we want for this pie is a dry pie dough

The Chocolate Filling

I want to make this as simple and easy as possible so I used a chocolate spread. I found a Lindt chocolate spread and that’s what I used, they’re so good. I used Lindt hazelnut chocolate spread, you can also use Nutella. One important tip is to have the chocolate lightly cold for easy spreading. When I made this for Valentines day, I freeze the small amount of chocolate so it is easy to handle when filling the pop tart. This time around, I just chilled the spread for few minutes. This lessen the mess of the chocolate oozing out of the pop tart when sealed. Second tip is not to over fill the tart. I know we all want more chocolate, trust me, even with the small amount you will get your doze of chocolate in this tart. Remember, this is a triple chocolate pop tart, so guaranteed chocolate inside and out.

Make-Ahead

Pie dough can be refrigerated up to 3 days. When ready to use, thaw until soft enough to roll and cut but not too soft that it will stick and break when rolled. Better yet, cut and fill the hand-pie keep refrigerated for 2 days or freeze up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator then bake as per instruction.

Storage

Since this is an all butter plus cream based pie dough and chocolate filled, it is not advisable to leave it in a warm temperature. It can last few days outside as long as the temperature is not too hot, I left it up to a week stored in an airtight container and it was still good. To be safe, keep any left over refrigerated if the weather is too hot outside.

I have couple of hand-pie recipes in my blog but they are either savory or fruity so this one is kind of stand-out from the rest because it is a chocolate flavored hand-pie. Being a chocolate lover, I cannot believe that I don’t actually have a chocolate hand-pie in my website. But better late than never, so here we are and let me give you few guidelines before we dive into the recipe.

Rolling, Filling & Cutting

Most of the time, I use cookie cutter to cut rolled cookies or tart like this. When I first made this pie dough, I used it for a Valentine theme tart. I used a heart shaped cookie cutter, filled the center and cover it with another piece of heart shaped tart dough. Here is how it looks like.

For this recipe, I took a different approach. I divided the dough into 2 pieces and rolled it into a 7×8 size. You can make it 7×7 or 8x8x for a more even square size. I chilled the dough before and after rolling it then I added the filling in the center of each piece, I was able to make 12 pieces. I then cover the top with the other rolled dough and used my hands and fingers to seal the edges. Although this method requires a bit more time to get the dough into a similar size and shape, I find this better because I ended up not having and scarps of dough. I always try to maximize the use of the ingredients as much as I can to avoid waste.

You can decide which method you prefer, either way works.

Tips to a Moist and Buttery Pie Dough

• COLD Ingredients – Pie dough 101 basic, always use cold ingredients when making the pie dough. Cold ingredients makes a great flaky pie, so make sure that the butter and cream are all cold. I even put all the dry ingredients in the fridge to chill before mixing it with the butter.
• Add Cream or Full Fat Milk: Cocoa powder always have the tendency to dry out the dough and so using a thicker and creamier cream or milk will give extra moisture to the dough. You don’t want to pour in all  the cream at the same time, add it gradually and feel the texture of the dough. You want the dough to be soft and yet firm enough to roll without cracking.
• Do Not Over-Work the Dough: The more that you work on the dough, the tougher it could get. Tough dough will result to a dry and tough hand pie, you don’t want that. Gather the dough to form a disk then chill the dough until firm enough to roll.
• Chill the Dough: Chilling makes the dough more stable so that it doesn’t loose it’s shape when bake. This is even more  important if you are using a decorative cookie cutter. So chill the dough about 30 minutes before cutting and after cutting into desired shape. You can even freeze the un-baked filled hand-pie.

There you go, 4 simple guidelines to soft and butter chocolate hand pie. Let’s put them to use and please do let me know how it goes, ok?

Ingredients:

• 1 cup All-Purpose Flour
• 4 tablespoon unsweetened Natural or Dutch-Process Cocoa Powder
• 4 tablespoon Granulated Sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted Butter, very cold and cubed
• 2 tablespoon cold Heavy Cream or Milk
• 60 grams melted chocolate

Instructions:

1. Make the Dough: Place the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, salt and cubed butter into a large food processor. Pulse 15-20 times until coarse crumbs form. Alternatively, you can use a large bowl and pastry cutter. Slowly drizzle in the cold milk or cream while pulsing (or stirring). After all the milk or cream is added, the dough should look slightly shaggy and be a little soft. If it’s too dry, add another tablespoon of milk or cream. Try not to overwork the dough. Form the dough into 1-inch thick. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes and up to 5 days.
2. Shape and Cut the Dough: Transfer the dough on a floured work surface and divide into 2 portions. Keep the other portion in the refrigerator while you work on the other portion. Cut a parchment paper and put the dough on top of it. Cover with another piece of parchment paper, this will avoid sticking to the rolling pin. Carefully roll the tart dough with a rolling pin, about 1/4-inch thick. Roll into a size between 7 – 8 inches square, or something closer to that. The end goal is to have 12 pieces after cutting it. Refrigerate and do the same for the other portion of the dough. You should have the same size and same no of squares for each portion so you can sandwich it later.
3. Fill the Hand Pie: Remove the cut dough  from  the refrigerator. Brush the sides with milk or cream. Put 1 teaspoon Nutella (or any chocolate spread filling) in the center. You can add more Nutella just make sure it is not too much to spread out of the pie when you seal it. Cover with another piece of cut dough. Use your fingers to feel the edges. Press to seal. Run a cutter and divide to 12 pieces. Cover with parchment paper. Leave the dough in the pan.
4. Chill the Pie: Chill the dough while you pre-heat the oven to 350F.
5. Transfer in a Baking Sheet: Separate the filled dough and arrange in the baking sheet. Press the sides with a fork to seal again. Leave gaps in between to allow air to circulate better.
6. Bake for 15 – 18 minutes.
7. Cool: Leave in the pan to cool.
8. Melt Chocolate – Chop and melt the chocolate in the microwave (30 seconds interval). Drizzle over the pop tart or dip the pop tart in the melted chocolate or serve as is.
9. Decorate: While the chocolate is till wet, decorate with sprinkles on top

Makes 12 pieces

Nutritional Information

Nutritional Information was calculated using Veryfitwell Recipe Calorie and Nutrition Calculator. For details about Nutritional Information in this website, please read the Disclaimer page.

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