Valentine’s Day is a day away!  If you’ve waited until the last minute to make a reservation and there are none to be had or you are making a homemade meal, HERE is a recipe for a Meatball stuffed with Provolone Cheese which you can serve over pasta or spiralized veggies.  And, on the menu today is dessert.  If you’re like me, I love nostalgic foods and one of these are pop tarts.  I didn’t eat them very often, but enjoyed them when I did!  Well, today’s recipe is an updated and homemade version which I filled with one of my (and a lot of others) fave things–Nutella!  You can make the recipe with store-bought pie dough or make homemade dough, which sounds hard but it isn’t. Follow along with the recipe below! 

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon granulated sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 9 tablespoons cold butter chopped into 1/4
• 1/3 cup ice cold water
• 3/4 cup raspberry (or fruit of choice) jam
• 3/4 cup Nutella
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• Sprinkles

Instructions:

• If making your own dough, in a large mixing bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, and salt
• Add in the butter and rub into the dry ingredients until the butter is broken up into small pieces the size of peas

• Slowly add in the water and stir until the dough comes together

• Divide the dough in half and flatten each piece to a 1 inch thick disk 
• If using store-bought pie dough, let thaw completely 
• Wrap in saran wrap and place in the refrigerator until firm (about 1 hour)

• Once the dough has chilled and is ready to use, remove it from the refrigerator and preheat oven to 350 degrees F
• Roll out each disk so the dough is about 1/4″ thick (if using store bought, sprinkle with sugar)
• Use a 3″ heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut out 12 hearts from the dough  (I didn’t have a cookie cutter, so I just cut out a heart from paper and traced used as a stencil)

• Place 6 of the hearts on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and set the remaining 6 aside

• Spread 1 teaspoon of jam and 1 teaspoon of Nutella in the middle of the hearts and up the “sides” of the heart. (I originally overestimated what a TSP is and had to go back and take half of both off the hearts before closing them completely)

• Use a brush or the back of a spoon to spread egg wash on the edges of the heart (around the jam/Nutella)
• Place the remaining hearts of top of the hearts with jam to create mini pies
• Use a fork to push down on the edges to crimp the pies to seal the filling inside

• Brush egg wash on top of each pie and place in the oven
• Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the hearts start to lightly brown
• Remove from oven and let cool

• To make the frosting, whisk together powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla
• Spread frosting on each hand pie and top with sprinkles

Stay hungry…