Mikelifesteer Homemade Uncrustables

Take two pieces of 100% whole wheat bread – I like to use double fiber bread, if available, to enhance the fiber intake. Remove the crust from the bread. Make the filling.  Two fillings that I have tried are:

Peanut butter, reduced fat cream cheese, low-sugar strawberry jam 

Peanut butter, reduced fat cream cheese, Musselman’s apple butter, cinnamon, raisins

In a ratio of approximately two heaping teaspoons of peanut butter to an equivalent amount of the other ingredients combined

You can of course try other components of the filling: prune butter, almond butter, various dried fruit and/or nuts, unsweetened apple sauce, chocolate, honey, wheat germ, etc.

Mix the filling and put in between the bread, and then seal the bread along the edges by pinching together.  Wrap in aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes at 400 degrees F.  After cooling you can eat or freeze (it freezes very well).  I usually cut in half, so each one made is two servings for me.

As with all the baked materials I make, the homemade version is not going to be as sweet as the store-bought, but it will be healthier – and you’ll know exactly what’s in it, how it was made, etc.  In addition, when you eat healthier, your tastes change, so that you don’t always like very sweet things.

In fact, as a fan of apple pie and various baked goods based on apples – including those I make myself – I find one of the major flaws in store-bought apple pies and other such baked goods is that they are too sweet.  Rather than let the natural sweetness and tartness of the apples come through, they bury it under excessive sugar.  That’s coupled with – at least for the cheaper versions – using mushy apple filling that is barely recognizable as apples; in addition, the crust they have is too thin and too flaky.  I like thicker crust, less sweetness, fresher apples, just the right amount of seasoning – let the apples and apple based products (apple butter or apple sauce) themselves provide most of the flavor.  The same principle applies to these homemade uncrustables – no extra sugar is added; whatever sweetness and sugar is already present in the filling is what provides the flavor.