These strawberry gluten free and keto pop tarts are simply just. sooo. good! The crust is buttery, tangy and flaky, while the strawberry filling is super fresh!
Gluten Free & Keto Pop Tarts
i.e. Ultimate Toaster Pastries!!
OK, so you can definitely call these guys hand pies too. But since they’re majestic lightly toasted and topped off with a cheesecake glaze, I’m totally dubbing them keto pop tarts.
And seriously don’t skimp on the cheesecake glaze, it rounds up beautifully these gluten free toaster pastries!
Bonus: they’re very filling! So you can easily get 8 smaller ones out of a batch of dough, bake them up, freeze, and pop in the toaster as needed.
The Deets
Many of you already know and love our gluten free & keto pie crust. Suuuper flaky and a breeze to make, we’ve already used it anywhere from keto empanadas to quiche.
The one trick is to work quickly and in a cool place. And if at any moment the dough feels unmanageable, simply pop it in the freezer for 10-15 minutes.
And do keep in mind that as the filling expands while baked, it will crack your pastry slightly. Honestly don’t sweat it, as the only way around this would be to increase the xanthan gum to make up for the lack of gluten. But that would mean less flakiness, and I’m just not into sacrificing taste and texture for looks.
The Strawberry Chia Jam Filling
For the strawberry filling, you’ll essentially be making our sugar free and keto chia jam. The chia seeds are an awesome way of adding extra fiber and nutrients to your favorite berry jam, while thickening up the lot without the need of extra sugar.
And I also like to add a handful of raspberries to liven things up a notch. But you can always do all strawberries, or any berry of choice really!
The batch also makes a little extra than what you need for the pop tarts themselves. But trust me, you’ll want to have it around. It’s awesome with a little yogurt and even with chia pudding (doubling up here!).
The Sweetener
One of the beautiful things about these keto pop tarts is that very little sweetener is needed (if at all!). If you’re using fresh summer strawberries and been on the keto diet long, you might be pleasantly surprised that no extra sweetener is needed.
But if your berries are a little tart, you’ve got options here. You can use erythritol (you guys know Lakanto is my fav brand here!), allulose (no after taste at all!) and xylitol. If just grain free, coconut sugar is your best bet here. And of course, raw sugar works great too.
If you’re opting for the cream cheese glaze, which comes highly recommended, just be sure your sweetener is powdered (allulose and xylitol arguably give less aftertaste).
So get your blender out, make sure it’s completely dry, and process your sweetener of choice until powdered. Just make sure you wait a few moments for the dust to settle before opening the blender or food processor.
Or you can always grab a bag of powdered erythritol (Lakanto!).
And if using xylitol, make sure to be careful if you have a pup around the house, as it’s highly toxic to the little guys! 🐕
Strawberry Gluten Free & Keto Pop Tarts
Oh, and if baking with cups rather than grams is your thing, just click on US Cups for an instant conversion.
Ingredients
For the strawberry filling
- 225 g strawberries fresh or frozen
- 75 g raspberries or more strawberries
- 1-4 teaspoons erythritol xylitol or allulose, to taste
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice freshly squeezed
- 2 tablespoons chia seeds or more, as needed
For the pie crust
- 1 batch gluten free & keto cream cheese pie crust with 1 teaspoon orange zest
- 1 egg lightly beaten, for egg wash
For the cheesecake glaze
- 60 g cream cheese softened
- 28 g unsalted grass-fed butter
- 2-4 tablespoons powdered erythritol allulose or xylitol, to taste
- 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- pinch kosher salt
- heavy cream or almond milk, as needed
Instructions
For the strawberry chia jam
- Cook your strawberries and raspberries in a saucepan over medium heat until they begin to break down, about 5 minutes.
- Stir in the lemon juice and sweetener of choice (to taste). Mash it down or leave it chunky. Cook for 5 more minutes, remove from heat and stir in the chia seeds. Let stand until it begins to thicken, adding water if needed to thin out until desired consistency is reached.
- Allow to cool to room temperature and store in an airtight container in the fridge for a week or two and in the freezer for up to three months.
For the pie crust
- Watch the recipe video below for guidance!
- Make a batch of our super flakey pie crust and chill while the strawberry jam is setting. I also highly suggest you add a teaspoon of orange zest to the crust!
To assemble the pop tarts
- Preheat oven to 400°F/200°C. Line a baking tray with a mat or parchment paper.
- Roll out pastry dough in between two sheets of parchment paper, lightly dusting with coconut flour as needed. Cut into desired size (I suggest making 8 pop tarts, as they're very filling!).
- Brush edges with egg wash and spoon a couple tablespoons of the chilled chia jam. Press edges together and press down with a fork. If there are any cracks, simply pinch the dough together. As with regular pie crust, try to work quickly or put your dough back in the fridge for 15 minutes if it begins to warm up too much.
- Place pop tarts in prepared tray, cut a few slits on the top with a sharp knife, freeze for 15 minutes, brush with egg wash and bake for 20-30 minutes, until golden all over. Baking time can vary a lot form oven to oven, so be sure to check in on them at minute 10. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before serving.
- Make the glaze while the pop tarts are cooking by creaming together with your mixer the cream cheese, butter and powdered sweetener until light and fluffy. Add in the vanilla extract, salt, and adjust texture to taste with a teaspoon of milk at a time. Keep in mind that unless you add a lot of sweetener, your glaze won't set completely.
- Store them unglazed, in an airtight container, at room temperature for 2-3 days. Alternatively you can freeze them unbaked or baked for about a month.
We love all of your recipes! Would you mind if I use some of your photos to entice my community to give some of your recipes a try?
Thank you
I am no baker by any stretch of the imagination but these came out really, really well!! I still need to work on the keto pie dough (you’d laugh if you knew how I messed this one up) but this is the first time it wasn’t crumbly and didn’t taste only like almond flour. The strawberry jam was out of this world and the cream cheese glaze as so good I had to stop from eating all of it alone! I plan to keep practicing and looking forward to perfecting the rest of your recipes! 😊
Hi Paola!!! I’ve been wanting to try my hand at a keto version of Trader Joe’s delicious pumpkin pop tarts. Not surprisingly, you beat me to the punch with your strawberry Pop tarts.
I tried making mine with the tortilla dough, though, and I whipped up some pumpkin filling using your homemade pumpkin spice recipe and some xylitol (I use the Xylosweet brand, a corn-based product, but I couldn’t stand the idea of tearing down all those birch trees just to get some sweetness🤣. No tummy issues for me! ) Anyway, and I wish I could upload a pic or two, but they came out deliciously!! Oh my goodness they’re yummy!! And I took your advice and topped them with cream cheese glaze with a bit of fresh Meyers lemon juice. Thank you for sharing your talents with us!! You are a never-ending wealth of keto wisdom😍
Made these today and they are fantastic! I took another reviewers advice and made empanada shaped, less crimping less messing with a fairly fragile dough. I also only took half of the dough out of the refrigerator at a time. This recipe is a keeper. I cooked all my berries for the filling and will be freezing small containers to add to homemade yogurt, or a topping for homemade ice cream. Easy recipe and oh my goodness it’s good… thank you!
I just made these and tho not even close to as pretty as yours they are very tasty and we’re surprisingly easy to make for a non baker like me. I will be making this recipe and this dough again for sure!! Thank you so much!!!
So, made the jam and dough last night and put it together this morning. My dough was too thin so added a bit more of the flours. I decided to take the easy route divided into 8 equal parts and made hand pies. I had one with my coffee this morning and wasn’t impressed… not sweet. Later I glanced st the recipe duh me…totally forgot about the glaze LOL. Um, yeah now I’m impressed. Delish!
These are super yummy! I am not a baker so I struggled a little with keeping the dough from sticking. I sprinkled coconut flour on parchment paper. I kept my dough very cold and eventually added enough coconut flour to keep it from sticking. Do you have any other suggestions? The jam by it self is so tasty!
Another amazing treat!! Thank you for always satisfying my sweet tooth with a keto replacement!!! Loved these pop tarts, just made another batch!
Hello, my wife is allergic to almonds do I have to use almond flour or do u have a measurement for coconut flour only?
Hi, any substitutions for the dairy in this recipe? THese look amazing and really want to try them but I’m trying to stick to a dairy free (except for butter) paleo/keto diet:)
I think KIte Hill has dairy free cream cheese. I’m going to try making it with that.
If you on the west coast, you’ll find that Green Valley Organics makes a lactose free cream cheese, if you have lactose allergies. I don’t know why a note to the owner of this website, that the print out of your recipes don’t come out in US measurements only in metric. You might want to fix this with your web developer!
Just wanted to say thank you for your recipes….Love them. Also I love the fact that you have added the pictures.
Thanks again.
I cannot use almond flour. Is there any other way of putting this recipe together.
It just looks sooooo good!
Could I use lime juice instead of lemon
I was wondering if you had to use the orange zest
You can totally skip it xo!
I made these earlier this week and I will say they’re very tedious to make, and because I’m not a baker (amateur at best) it took some time and fenaggeling. I gotta say- they were absolutely delicious. I missed the order in operations I accidentally put the egg wash on them then baked them- they still turned out absolutely delicious. I would definitely make them again. I’d also recommend to keep them at room temp and scarf them down in a day or two because they get stale and don’t taste as crispy as you may want if they’re not fresh. This is probably #2 on my favorite sweet keto desserts of all time (so far!).
Hi Paola! This recipe looks amazing, but I am highly allergic to chia seeds. Any suggestions for it’s replacement?
Wow! These are so delicious but I must say working with this dough was so frustrating and seemed to take forever just to make a few at a time. 🤦🏻♀️ I finally just gave up and made a galette. 😁.
How do you reheat these if you do not have a toaster? will they burn if placed back in the oven?
Not at all just pop them in the oven! They’re also awesome at room temp too
Paola,
I’m planning to make a batch and freeze half, unbaked. Can I bake the frozen ones directly out of the freezer (same temp?) or do I need to thaw them first?
Hi Diana! You can bake the straight from the freezer, you’ll just need to add more baking time same temp! How much longer will vary, but just bake them until golden 😉 xo!
I made these, and first let me say they were incredible. I made them with blueberry filling. Cream cheese frosting is amazing. My notes to anyone making it:
* it’s easier to not roll out all of the dough at once. break it in half or quarters. Or, better yet, take a small ball of dough, roll out a circle, and make a half-circle empanada shape. A half circle means no cut off dough on the sides.
* when she says use coconut flour as needed, DO! Dust it all over to make the dough easier to handle. You don’t want it sticking too badly to the parchment paper.
* It can help sometimes to flip a bit of flattened dough (in the parchment paper) to peel off the top layer and give a dusting of coconut flour, you want to be able to scoop it up once shaped.
* it’s ultimately pretty forgiving, I had a few very ugly ones that ripped open a bit and they still baked just fine.
Made these, taste delish! But my pastry wasn’t really flaky but more crumbly? Was fine but not sure if that was correct. I used standard ground almonds also called flour but it wasn’t very fine, might that be the problem? Anyway, this was my first v3nture into keto baking so still really impressed!
Bought your book and can’t wait to cook some more out of it.
Many thanks
Hi Lynn! Awesome on the taste, not so awesome on the texture! But yeah, the almond meal would definitely be the issue. For best results in keto baking you really do want the finely ground stuff, otherwise it comes out dense and oily in most cases. Perhaps the only recipe where meal is awesome is in the graham cracker crust in the book (thank you for purchasing it!!). Hope you continue to love the recipes 🙂
Hi, do you have to add the chia seeds? I’m not a huge fan of them.
I would suggest looking for a specific recipe for the jam without the chia seeds then Erin 😉 xo
I am not a fan of the seed texture of the chia seeds ( they get in between my teeth) so I was wondering if grinding them before putting them in the filling recipe would work? Has anyone tried this, or do you know, Paola?
You can indeed grind them! I believe I wrote this somewhere on the chia jam recipe (or forgive me if I didn’t!) xo!
These were amazing! Thank you so much. You’re definitely the best gluten free baker I’ve come across. Off topic, have you ever thought of doing a gluten free/keto bagel recipe? I’ve missed bagels soooo much ever since I cut out gluten. Thanks for the amazing recipes! :’)
She has a bagel recipe – in case you haven’t found it yet.
If you have sugar free strawberry jam sweetened with Splenda, can you just heat it up and add the Chia seeds and perhaps a little water to get the right consistency and fiber?? Didn’t want to heat up the kitchen making jam, it’s supposed to top 100* today!
Sounds Yummy!
Whaaat?! Can you please send some heat over to Mexico City?! I’m wearing a turtleneck lol!
Ok regarding your question, in all honesty I’ve never worked with Splenda products so I’m not sure how they behave. But! I don’t see why you couldn’t bulk it up with chia seeds. Rather than heat it up though (just in case it breaks down!), I would just mix in the chia seeds, add a couple tablespoons of water and let them hang out until they puff up (a couple hours/overnight). You can then thin it out a bit more if need be. I hope this helps! xo
Where can I find the xylitol powder. I seem to only see the regular crystal sugar on Amazon.
Hi Patrycja! I just run it in my (very dry!) bullet/blender to powder it 😉 xo!
Paola
I am very glad to have stumbled upon your site. I have struggled with my weight for quite a while and when I hit 285 pounds decided it was a time for a change.
After a lot of research, I decided to go on a ketosis diet and am glad to say 6 weeks later I have lost 30 pounds.
Now that being said I am a pop tart fiend and lived off them through college. I am most excited to try your recipe as they seem yummy.
Thanks again!
So awesome to hear the keto diet has worked so well for you Stacy! Thank you for your comment and hope you love these! xo
I’ve used your pie crust for hand pies before and it’s excellent! I’m going to try these next with the chia jam as I did notice that the berries alone can make it a little soggy. I’m assuming also the lack of sugar to caramelize it? Such wonderful recipes thank you!
Hi Janine! Awesome to hear you love the pie crust! And yes on the berries, you want to make sure they don’t leak while cooking or they’ll make your crust soggy. xo!
Where do I find the ingredients and measurement in the recipe for the pop tarts
OMG these look so good!! All of your recipes do. I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease last October and thought I’d never enjoy eating again. Can’t wait to try these!!!
Oh lol I get you COMPLETELY! I lived off rice for the first too weeks after I was diagnosed with Celiacs… little did I know ;)! Hope you love the recipes Stella!
I cannot picture you living off rice lol! Your blog is too amazing 🙂
Lol!! Took me a while to wrap my head around the no-gluten situation 😉