By any other name. . .

Little known fact:
In 1963 Post Cereal announced it's new breakfast product- Country Squares- but Kellogg jumped on the idea and beat them to the release date by six months with their Pop-Tarts. . ."Country Squares were put on the market later that same year, but sales lagged behind Pop-Tarts. It is widely believed that Country Squares failed because of their name. In the progressive culture of the time, with TV shows like "The Beverly Hillbillies", the name "Country Squares" was associated with being backward and boring. Country Squares failed to take off, while Pop-Tarts became a sensation."
So the lesson here would be keep your ideas hushed until you have the best marketing campaign and fool-proof plan set. . . if your goal is to be the first and most profitable.

My addition to that is: this isn't everyone's goal (thank goodness) and obviously I'm not for any company making and then selling sugar and chemical filled processed products in the first place. Also note that the above picture is VERY tongue-in-cheek, ironic, sarcastic. . . but I'm assuming if you're reading this post, you would already pretty much get that. . .
So. . . in the midst of my simultaneous peckish and searching for projects behaviour as of late. . .
I'm hanging out, waiting for the non-profit in Berkeley to give me a start date. . . I remembered Shannon Marie's Pop-Tart recipe. . . and decided to make a batch.
Mostly for my mum as she definitely grew up on the sugary 60's junk and processed food like brown-sugar frosted Pop-Tarts (which she loved). . . until she and my dad got married and then it was garden grown vegetables, whole wheat + from scratch EVERYTHING, carob and honey, no sugar, barely any meat and nothing processed. . . so my only experiences with Pop-Tarts (or any candy, soda or sugary junk food) came from friend's houses- I felt like I was being so bad, eating the forbidden fruit.
It didn't take long to realize that I didn't like it anyway, but the few tastes of the brown sugar and apple variety stayed with me. . . (and my parents as well) although it's been years since any of us tried them.

As with most of the things I make, these were nut free. . . and when they came out of the dehydrator on Saturday morning. . . there were some ecstatic grins and swooning smiles as we "experienced" Pop-Tarts all over again- this time a hundred times better!
Mum's favourite part was that they even made the same clicking sound when you put them on the plate. . . anyone who's had one completely knows what I mean. I'm not sure if the fact that they left the same sort of aftertaste in my mouth and throat was my favourite part or not but it was sort of surreal and coolish.

I made a tweaked version of the Buckwheat Crispies from Raw Food Real World. . .
2ish cups of (soaked for one hour beforehand) raw buckwheat groats (buckwheat is actually not technically a grain, but an edible fruit seed FYI)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (liquid or powder)
2 teaspoons sea salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
sweetener (raw honey, agave, stevia- whatever you prefer) to taste
and an added teaspoon of mesquite and maca (completely optional)
also optional would be 2 tablespoons raw cacao or carob powder for the chocolate variety. . .

This was all mixed together in a high-speed blender until smooth and spread on a Teflex-lined dehydrator tray spread fairly thin. . . but just making sure it's pretty even as the edges will become too brittle too fast if they're much thinner than the middle.
I dehydrated this for an hour or so (at 112 degrees)then made score marks in rectangles of the size I wanted. . . then let them dehydrate a few more hours (or until they peeled easily from the Teflex sheet).
I flipped them over onto a flat surface. . . and sliced them completely so I had my squares.

I put them (drier side down) on an empty tray and put a spoonful of filling (mine was an apple chopped finely with some cinnamon, a splash of lemon juice and raw honey with some ground stevia leaf to make it extra sweet) and then put a second square on top (with the drier side facing up), pinched the edges together (oh and don't forget to make the fork holes on the top!!) and continued until all the squares were filled and matched. . . then I put the vanilla cream (see below) into a plastic bag and snipped a tiny hole in the bottom, squeezing it out in a zig-zag pattern (this makes it like a toaster strudel sort of design I think), or you could just smear it over the tops with a butter knife.

These went back into the dehydrator for anywhere from a few hours to overnight. . . it's lovely to time them to come out still a bit warm in the morning for the traditional breakfast treat. Really, I don't think you could go wrong with these. . . I'm not a huge recipe follower and tend to wing it with whatever ingredients I have and I don't always love dehydrated things so don't be afraid to experiment and taste-test as they're dehydrating. . . you might come up with some new and completely brilliant results!

And with the filling you can pretty much re-create any of the SAD versions. . . strawberry, chocolate, blueberry, etc.

The vanilla frosting could be made with any recipe (there's tons out there), but in the interest of time and again going nut-free- here's what I came up with and it was pretty perfect:
Mix together in a bowl, raw coconut butter (my favourite hands down is the Artisana) with some raw honey (or agave, or stevia), sea salt and vanilla extract. . . and some water to thin if needed. The proportions are pretty flexible. . . it depends on how much you want and it's very easy to tell what to add taste-wise because you're just combining it in a bowl until it's the desired sweetness and consistency.


It may seem a bit complex, but I promise it was SO easy. . . I'm not one to spend lots of time making things with tons of ingredients or steps and this recipe has my seal of approval for ease and simplicity.

The finished batch disappeared in about fifteen minutes. . . and again- it's the coolest sound to hear a raw and completely healthy Pop-Tart hitting the plate in the same traditional way. . . with the same hard outside and soft insides. . . mmmmmm. . . it's incredibly satisfying to know that all the kids that ever come into my life won't go without this piece of pop culture (haha no pun intended) but they'll be nourished and energized without sugar at the same time!

To finish with another bit of trivia: The name Pop-Tarts "was a double pun on the hippest thing happening at the time: Pop Art, which Andy Warhol had made a household word with his giant soup cans and Brillo boxes."

What's in a name? Judging from this story. . . I would say, a hell of a lot!