These vegan birthday cake poptarts are a fun, special treat with all the nostalgic birthday cake flavors! They’re made with 6 healthy ingredients, gluten free, and naturally sweet.
Happy Monday! And to my most favorite human in the entire universe, happy birthday! Today is my amazing husband’s birthday, and every year I like to share a fun, festive sweet just for him.
This year when I asked him what he wanted for his birthday blog treat, he specifically requsted poptarts. That wasn’t surprising, cause Joe looooves pie. And poptarts are basically cute little handheld pies, right?
I started brainstorming flavors, and because apple pie is Joe’s fave I was originally thinking of going with fruity. But I already shared wild berry poptarts, and Joe actually suggested a birthday cake poptart, and as the cake-obsessed girl I am, I was totally on board.
So, vegan birthday cake poptarts were born! These gems are sweet, super simple, and SO fun. They do require a few steps, but the process is so, so worth it, especially for my guy’s birthday.
Ingredients for vegan birthday cake poptarts
- Rolled oats: you’ll blend the oats to flour consistency, which will hold the poptart dough together and gives great chewy texture.
- Medjool dates: you’ll blend the dates with hot water to make a paste, which sweetens the poptart dough.
- Raw cashews: you’ll blend cashews after soaking them in water, which creates a super creamy and rich texture for the filling.
- Vanilla + almond extracts: this combo is essential to get that classic birthday cake flavor.
- Stevia: a bit of stevia sweetens the poptart filling.
Tips for making vegan birthday cake poptarts
- Be careful when adding the filling. When the bottoms of the poptarts have baked for 10 minutes, you’ll set the pan on the counter and carefully spoon the filling onto each poptart bottom. Remember, the pan is hot, so be super careful.
- Do not overfill. It’s tempting to add a lot of filling to the centers of the poptarts, but if you fill them too much, it’ll all ooze out the sides when you seal them up. There will be a lot of the frosting mixture leftover, so you can always add plenty to the top of the finished poptarts.
These vegan birthday cake poptarts have dense, chewy dough that’s the perfect pairing with the rich and creamy frosting both inside and on top. They even SMELL like birthday cake!
Happy birthday, Joe!! You’re truly the best person I know, and I love you more every day.
Xo,
Sara
Vegan Birthday Cake Poptarts
Ingredients
Poptart Dough
- 2 cups rolled oats, blended into flour
- 1 cup date paste – I use 15 pitted medjool dates blended with 1 cup hot water, then measure out 1 cup paste
Filling + Frosting
- 2 cups cashews, soaked in water for at least 3 hours (or overnight) then drained
- 1-2 tbsp stevia – you can leave this out as the poptart dough is fairly sweet, but if you want a slightly sweeter frosting, add stevia to your taste. You could also use 2-4 pitted medjool dates instead, but they will change the color slightly.
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 1/4 cup water
- Optional: vegan sprinkles for decoration when the poptarts are done – the ones I used are colored with fruit/vegetable juice, I found them at Whole Foods!
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- For the dough, mix the oat flour and date paste in a large bowl. The dough should be very thick and not too wet.
- Press out 3 tbsp of the dough into 4 rectangular shapes on a nonstick or lined baking sheet. These are the bottoms of the poptarts.
- Bake just the bottoms for 10 minutes.
- While the bottoms are baking, make the filling/frosting by blending the soaked cashews, stevia, vanilla extract, almond extract, and water until everything is incorporated and it's thick and creamy. You'll have to stop it a few times and use a spatula to scrape down the sides so everything gets mixed in. I use a lot of frosting on top, so if you don't want as much, you could probably cut the frosting ingredients half and have enough for the filling and a thinner layer of frosting than shown in these photos.
- When the bottoms have baked for 10 minutes, set the pan on the counter and carefully (the pan is hot!) spoon about 2 tbsp of the filling onto each poptart bottom. DO NOT overfill! There will be a lot of the frosting mixture leftover, which you'll put on top of the finished poptarts.
- Divide the remaining dough into four pieces, one for each poptart top – shape it roughly with your hands, and place it on top of the filled bottoms, carefully sealing the edges with your fingers (remember, the pan is hot, so be careful!). A bit of filling may seep out when you're assembling, which is fine. Do the best you can and have fun with it ????
- Use a fork to gently press the edges of the poptart to seal them together.
- Bake the full poptarts for another 10 minutes. Chill the filling/frosting mixture in the fridge while the poptarts finish baking.
- Once they're done, allow the poptarts to cool on the pan for 15 minutes before removing from the pan to cool completely.
- When the poptarts are cool, spread the remaining frosting on top, and add sprinkles if desired (I just use these for photos, the birthday cake flavor comes from the filling/frosting!).
- Store leftovers in the refrigerator. These are best enjoyed fresh, or 2-3 days after baking.
