New favorite pie dough treat

A few months ago one of my Facebook friends posted a link to a recipe for homemade pop-tarts.  This sounded like a fun thing to try.   When I read the recipe it looked to be just pastry dough with jam, and seemed pretty simple, but I never got around to trying a batch.  Recently, when I had some leftover pie dough, I thought it would be fun to try making jam sandwiches with them - like the pop-tart recipe.  We all loved the resulting treats!

I just rolled out my leftover dough, then cut it into rectangles.  I put some of my homemade peach jam on half of the rectangles, then topped with another piece of dough and pricked with a fork a few times.  They baked at 400 degrees for ten minutes or so.  Some weekend morning soon I will surprise my family by making a batch of these without waiting for leftover pie dough!

Another reason to have leftover pastry dough

A while ago I posted how my mother used pastry scraps to make pie crust cookies.  My childhood memories of Mom making pie center on enjoying those pastry morsels.  My husband also remembers his mother making pie, and her use of the extra dough.  Now, if he sees the scraps first he makes these "railroad tunnels" that his mother made for him.  I love seeing him wield a rolling pin, and these are delicious (if he decides to share!)

All you do to make these is roll out the leftover pie dough into a rectangle, spread with softened butter and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.  Then cut into strips and roll up cinnamon roll style.  These usually bake in the oven along with a pie - they aren't too picky about exact time and temperature - just make sure you watch them because there's not much sadder than burning something that should be this yummy.  My dear husband doesn't mind eating these raw though :)

A reason to have left over pastry dough

It seems to be impossible to make exactly the right amount of pastry, no matter what size pie pans I use, so it's always necessary to use that extra dough.  When I was a kid my mother would roll out the leftovers, cut it in to strips then bake it with a dusting of sugar.  We called these "pie crust cookies".  After I got married my husband took over the dough, making what his mother called "rail road tunnels".  This entails spreading the dough with softened butter and cinnamon sugar, then rolling it up in a tube and slicing it up like cinnamon rolls before baking.  Both of these make great little treats for the kids while they wait for the actual pie to be ready.  Two of my daughters recently spent a weekend together and made pie, and they invented a new pie crust cookie.  I made their new cookie out of the extra dough when I made pie today - it's a combination of each of their grandmothers' tasty treats.  After rolling out the pastry I spread it with softened butter, then I cut it up into squares (my daughters used a biscuit cutter to make round cookies but I didn't want to have to handle the dough any more or have any waste) and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.  These lasted about 30 seconds after coming out of the oven.