These adorable vegan blueberry pop tarts are bursting with sweet berries and scented with a hint of lovely lavender!
We are at the peak of blueberry season! Blueberries are my favourite berry and I never get tired of snacking on them like a black bear. I’ve already gone blueberry picking twice since the u-pick season began and still have room in my freezer for more. It’s so easy to throw them into a muffin batter, scones, smoothies, and PIE!
When we asked ya’ll which recipe from our Vegan Picnic Menu you wanted to see first, these pop tarts were by far the most requested. How did ya’ll know pie was the key to our hearts? So here we are, launching our new summer series with the best course: dessert!
We’ve been wanting to create an awesome plant-based picnic menu for at least the past 2 years but have just never gotten to it because there are so many summer recipes on our to-do list. Having a very #extra picnic was an excellent excuse to get dolled up and feast with two of my bestest friends. Our schedules clash in every way possible this summer (’tis the summer of working and earning money) so this very narrow window on a Monday evening was enough motivation for me to bring this vegan picnic to life.
I turned my house upside down to find all the props needed to make this picnic Pinterest-worthy. My house is a sunken ship or something because I find the most random treasures. A watermelon-shaped picnic basket, tasseled knit picnic cloth, and all the wood serving dishes were all pulled out from some corner of my house. I guess that’s what happens when you’ve lived in the same house for over 20 years; you just accumulate endless knick knacks. Works out for me because I didn’t need to buy a single prop for this picnic (thank goodness because your girl is on a student budget)! I also never need to buy Halloween costumes either because my mother’s closet never lets me down. I can find any colour clothing item for any DIY costume. No joke, I’ve dressed head-to-toe in colbalt blue as a Toy Story alien and banana yellow as a Minion. All courtesy of Mama Leung’s closet.
Once you’ve sourced all the props needed to make your picnic comfy chic, time for the FOOD! Our spread consisted of 5 seasonally inspired dishes, think lots of summer produce and fresh herbs! Sugar snap peas and mint, mango and basil, sweet potato and dill, blueberry and lavender… Oh sorry, am I making you drool?
I stuffed each of these lil’ pop tarts as full as I could, so you can see they look tall and pudgy. Since the crust is so forgiving to work with, I managed to successfully seal all the pies. I did, however, forget to poke a few holes in the top before sticking them into the oven, so some of the filling exploded out the sides. Which ended up looking rustic and great for photos, so it wasn’t the end of the world. But if you like cleaner looking edges, use a fork or knife to make some holes or slits to allow the steam to escape while the pop tarts bake.
The best part of these blueberry pop tarts is the vegan pie crust! I guess these are technically hand pies with glaze. Once it’s glazed it becomes a pop tart? Anyways, the crust is so easy to make from scratch, so easy to roll out (no chilling!), and incredibly flaky and delicious once baked. Chew ate three of these pies at our picnic because she couldn’t resist the crust (it’s her favourite part). So you may want to double the recipe if you know you have some crust monsters coming to your picnic.
These vegan lavender blueberry pop tarts are one of the best desserts I’ve ever made, for the blog or in my personal life. Lavender is my favourite scent and colour! I can’t sleep without diffusing lavender oil or misting my pillow with lavender spray. The lavender infused sugar is heavenly; I couldn’t stop wafting it as I made these pop tarts. Lavender might taste like soap to some people, but don’t worry, there is just enough in this recipe for a light fragrance. Be sure to crush up the lavender buds well so you don’t unexpectedly bite into a whole bud.
Despite working at a pie shop for several months, I never felt good at making pie because the crust never cooperated. But with this recipe, I am so excited to make more pies! Beware: there may be a lot of pie and pop tart recipes coming up in the future.
Come back next week to get the next recipe on our Vegan Picnic Menu!
- CRUST
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- A pinch of sea salt
- ⅓ cup cold, solid coconut oil*
- 3 to 4 tbsp ice water
- FILLING
- 2 tbsp organic cane sugar
- ½ tsp dried culinary lavender
- 2 cups blueberries (if frozen, keep frozen)
- 1½ tsp cornstarch
- A pinch of sea salt
- WASH
- 2 tbsp full fat coconut milk
- GLAZE
- ¼ cup icing sugar
- Juice of ¼ lemon
- Water, as needed
- Purple food dye (optional)
- Preheat oven to 400°F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a non-stick silicon mat.
- CRUST: In a large mixing bowl, add flour and salt. Use a pastry blender to cut cold coconut oil into flour until mixture resembles bread crumbs. Add water 1 tbsp at a time until a shaggy dough comes together.
- Flour a clean work surface. Turn dough out onto surface and bring it together into a disk. Roll out until ¼" thick. Using a sharp knife or a square cookie cutter, cut out 12 even squares. Refrigerate dough until ready to fill.
- FILLING: In a mortar and pestle, crush lavender into cane sugar. You may do this ahead of time and let the lavender infuse the sugar for a longer period of time, or use right away. Toss the blueberries, infused sugar, cornstarch, and salt together until evenly combined.
- ASSEMBLY: Lay out 6 of the dough squares and wet the edges with a bit of water. Fill the middle with one heaping tablespoon of berry filling. Take another dough square and use your fingers to gently stretch the middle of the square so that it will fit over the filling. Cover the filling with the stretched dough, then press firmly around the edges and use a fork to seal.
- Arrange pop tarts onto prepared cookie sheet and brush the tops with full fat coconut milk.
- Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until golden brown. Allow pop tarts to cool completely before glazing.
- GLAZE: In a small bowl, mix icing sugar and lemon juice until smooth. Add food dye if desired and mix until evenly coloured. Adjust consistency with water if icing is too thick. Spoon about a teaspoon of glaze over each cooled pop tart and allow it to flow down the sides. Let the glaze harden before serving or storing.
Crust recipe lightly adapted from Minimalist Baker
They seem delicious and they look super adorable. Can’t wait to try these!
PopTarts look and sound so good! Also love the cute pineapple bowl! <3 🙂
Any ideas on how to make this gluten-free? Thanks!
Hi Joy, we haven’t tested a gluten free version of this but it would probably be easiest if you used a pre-made gluten free flour mix.
I needed recipes to use up the big bag of lavender I bought and this flavor combo was perfect! The filling calls for 2 cups of blueberries though, which I used in two batches of crust and still only used half of the filling. We’ll use the rest at breakfast, but these pop tarts were a big hit.
how many calories are in 1 🙂
Hi Deb, we don’t have the capacity to calculate the nutritional content for our recipes at this time. Thanks for your understanding, we hope you still got to enjoy the tarts!