Want to make your own homemade Toaster Strudels? This recipe will show you how to make this easy grab-and-go breakfast! It also features dairy and gluten free alternatives so just about anyone can make them.
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Homemade Toaster Strudels Recipe
Some mornings it’s nice to have breakfast to take on the go. Before I made these, I’d seen several recipes around the blogosphere for homemade pop tarts but personally the kids just like toaster strudels better.
When I was doing some experimenting this is the recipe that I came up with. It’s totally from scratch and uses ingredients that you can identify easily. Unlike most recipes, this one does not use puff pastry sheets. Instead we will make our own dough that I think tastes so much better!
Once I make these, I like to just stick them in the freezer so anyone can just grab one for breakfast!
Are you ready to make these delicious little pockets of goodness? Let’s get started!
Homemade Toaster Strudels Ingredients
- Flour. All purpose flour is what you need for this recipe. You can also use gluten free flour if you add some kind of binder.
- Baking Powder. We go through a lot of baking powder here so I like to buy it in bulk here.
- Salt. I use pink salt in all of my recipes because that’s what I have on hand. You can buy it in bulk here.
- Butter. Salted or unsalted butter will work fine, you can remove the added salt from the recipe if using salted.
- Milk. You can use a milk alternative if you need to. We use coconut milk but almond milk, oat milk, etc will all work just fine.
- Jam. You can use jam, jelly, pureed fruit, applesauce, or other fruit (or maybe even something like peanut butter or chocolate?) for the filling. I use whatever jams I have canned up.
FAQs About Toaster Strudels
What is toaster strudel icing made of?
Pillsbury lists these as the ingredients for toaster strudels and the icing:
Enriched Flour Bleached (wheat flour, malted barley flour, ferrous sulfate, niacin, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), Water, Palm and/or Soybean Oil, Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Dextrose. Contains 2% or less of: Corn Starch, Modified Corn Starch, Hydrogenated Palm Oil, Salt, Dry Yeast, Modified Whey, Corn Syrup Solids, Wheat Starch, Lactic Acid, Whey Protein Concentrate, Mono and Diglycerides, Strawberry Juice Concentrate, Carboxymethylcellulose, Sodium Citrate, Microcrystalline Cellulose, Baking Soda, Preservatives (sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate, TBHQ, citric acid), Xanthan Gum, Polysorbate 60, Natural And Artificial Flavor, Color (red 40, blue 1, artificial color).
You can make your own icing by mixing powdered sugar, a small bit of milk, and a little vanilla extract. Toaster Strudels from the store contain milk in their icing so if you are dairy free, it’s a good idea to make homemade.
How to make a toaster strudel without a toaster?
You can make a toaster strudel on the stovetop or on a griddle instead. We do not have a toaster and we just cook our homemade toaster strudels and pop tarts on my Lodge Griddle.
Instructions to Make Homemade Toaster Strudels
Milk together the dry ingredients. Crumble in the butter. I like to use a fork to do this since I don’t have a pastry cutter.
Slowly add in the milk. You may not need the whole 3/4 cup. You don’t want the dough to be sticky since you need to be able to roll it out.
Roll the dough into a ball.
Roll out the dough into something of a square shape.
Fold the dough in half.
And fold it in half again. And roll out into another square shape. Do this several more times. Don’t knead the dough, you are trying to make layers.
Pull the dough in half after you’ve folded and rolled it out at least 5 times. It should look like this. Nice and layery.
Roll out very thin. Then cut into rectangles about 5″x6″. Place half of the rectangles on your baking sheet that is covered with parchment paper.
Spoon a filling in the middle of half of the squares. For this batch, I used applesauce that I canned last fall. You could use jams, applesauce, pureed fruit, or more.
Fold the dough in half and crimp the edges with a fork. Make sure you seal the edges well or they will pop open and you will lose your filling.
Brush the strudels with butter. Bake at 350F for 20 minutes. They won’t necessarily be golden brown when they are done but they will get nice and puffy.
If you really want them to have more of a golden brown color over the top like the ones from the store, you can mix together a simple egg mixture (egg mixed with water) and brush that over the tops before baking.
Yummy. They smell so good when you take them out of the oven! Set them on a wire rack to cool.
This recipe makes at least 10 pastries.
If you’d like to have a frosting over the top, you can make a simple drizzle by combining powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and a small amount of milk (or dairy free milk). Do not put the drizzle on before storing or you will have a hard time re-heating the toaster strudels.
Store any extras in an airtight container on the countertop or in the fridge.
Gluten Free Toaster Strudels or Dairy Free Toaster Strudels
You can make variations to this recipe if you need it to be dairy free or gluten free. Here are some ideas.
Gluten Free Toaster Strudels – Use an All Purpose Gluten Free Flour instead of regular flour. Since this recipe doesn’t have a binder, you will also want to make sure to add 1 teaspoon of Xanthan Gum to the mixture if your flour does not have it in it. The texture of the dough will be slightly different (drier and a bit crumblier) but you should still be able to continue with the rest of the recipe as is. If you have trouble rolling out the dough with gluten free flour, chill it in the fridge before you work on rolling it out.
Dairy Free Toaster Strudels – Replace the milk with a milk alternative and brush the tops of the strudels with an egg wash or a buttery spread alternative in place of the butter. We like to use this Earth Balance Buttery Spread to replace butter in some recipes. With the replacements, you can continue with the recipe as written or follow the gluten free instructions above.
Best Toaster Strudel Fillings
You can fill your homemade toaster strudel with just about anything, but here are a few things that are particularly good!
- Strawberry Jam
- Apple Pie Filling
- Blueberry Jam
- Cream Cheese
- Raspberry Jam
- Peach Cantaloupe Butter
No matter how you decide to fill your homemade toaster strudel, the filling will taste so much better and less artificial than the ones from the freezer section of the grocery store!
Need the printable recipe for these Homemade Toaster Strudels for your Recipe Binder? Grab it below!
4.5 from 2 votes
Homemade Toaster Strudels
Servings 5 people
Calories 192 kcal
Ingredients
- 2cupsflour
- 2teaspoonsbaking powder
- 3/4teaspoonssalt
- 6tbspbutter softened
- 3/4cupmilkor less
Instructions
Milk together the dry ingredients. Crumble in the butter. I like to use a fork to do this since I don't have a pastry cutter.
Slowly add in the milk. You may not need the whole 3/4 c. You don't want the dough to be sticky.
Roll the dough into a ball.
Roll out the dough into something of a square shape.
Fold the dough in half.
And fold it in half again. And roll out into another square shape. Do this several more times. Don't knead the dough, you are trying to make layers.
Pull the dough in half after you've folded and rolled it out at least 5 times. It should look like this. Nice and layery.
Roll out very thin. Then cut intorectanglesabout 5"x6".
Place a filling in the middle of half of the squares. For this batch, I used applesauce that I canned last fall. You could use jams, applesauces, pureed fruit, or more.
Fold the dough in half and crimp the edges with a fork.
Brush the strudels with butter. Bake at 350F for 20 minutes. They won't be brown when they are down but they will get nice and puffy.
Yummy. They smell so good when you take them out of the oven! This recipe makes at least 10 pastries.
Nutrition Facts
Homemade Toaster Strudels
Amount Per Serving
Calories 192Calories from Fat 9
% Daily Value*
Fat 1g2%
Saturated Fat 1g6%
Trans Fat 0.04g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0.2g
Monounsaturated Fat 0.3g
Cholesterol 3mg1%
Sodium 527mg23%
Potassium 54mg2%
Carbohydrates 39g13%
Fiber 1g4%
Sugar 0.1g0%
Protein 5g10%
Vitamin A 30IU1%
Calcium 102mg10%
Iron 2mg11%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
Have you ever made homemade Toaster Strudels?
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This recipe for Homemade Toaster Strudels was originally published on Little House Living in May 2011. It has been updated as of January 2023.
