I love toaster strudel. When I was in college, my friends and I would eat toaster strudel whenever we’d been thwarted in love. We’d use the icing to draw the thwarter’s face, and then we’d eat it. It was ridiculously therapeutic voodoo.

I got this recipe out of a Williams-Sonoma catalog. They wanted me to buy their toaster pastry cutter/sealer, which I didn’t do. However, the recipe was excellent, even if I used a knife and my fingers to cut and seal it.

Recipe: Toaster Pastries

Difficulty: Medium-ish

Servings: 8 (or so)

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 Tbs. granulated sugar
• 16 Tbs. (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch dice (I only had salted butter on hand, and it was fine. I just went light on the other salt in the recipe)
• 6 to 8 Tbs. ice water
• 1/2 cup strawberry or cherry preserves (or raspberry, which I used)
• 3/4 cup sliced strawberries or 1/2 cup roughly chopped pitted cherries (or raspberries, which were also delicious)
• 1 egg, beaten with 1 tsp. water
• 1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar (powdered sugar)
• 2 Tbs. milk

If you have a food processor, use it to blend the flour, salt and granulated sugar. Add the butter and process until it’s in coarse crumbs. (Note: if you don’t have a food processor, don’t mess with a blender. I always try this, and it’s always a giant failure. Just mix it by hand with a pastry blender. ) Add the 6 Tbs. ice water until the dough holds together when you squeeze it, but isn’t sticky. If it’s still crumbly, add one Tsp. at a time until it holds.

Form the dough into two discs, wrap them separately in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least two hours, or overnight.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or a Silpat. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of 1/8 inch. At this point, it’s really convenient if you have a pastry cutter or a cookie cutter. However, if you don’t have one, just cut them into 8 toaster-strudel-sized rectangles. Lay them out on the cookie sheets and spoon on a Tbs. of preserves, leaving about half an inch around the edges. Top each with 3 strawberry slices (or a few raspberries or cherries). Brush the edge with the egg mixture and then top the whole thing with another piece of dough. Seal the edges with your fingers (or your awesome toaster pastry press, if you have one of those) and refrigerate them for half an hour.

Put your oven racks in the top third and bottom third of the oven and preheat it to 350. Bake the pastries for 25 minutes or until golden brown, rotating them from top to bottom and back to front halfway through. Let cool for 10 minutes, them transfer to a wire rack to cool the rest of the way.

In a bowl, stir together the confectioners’ sugar and milk together until well-combined. Drizzle the icing over the pastry with a spoon. (W-S says to let it harden completely before you serve it, but we couldn’t wait. It was good warm and gooey too.)

Mmmmm.

Recipe source: William-Sonoma.com

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