Pineapple Tarts

17 January 2010

This is my maiden attempt in making any Chinese New Year tarts/cookies. Actually, I love eating cookies/tarts, but I am always hesitant to make them. Why? Because they are time-consuming. Not the preparation of the dough/pastry, but the baking time. Thanks to my small oven, I need to stand in front of it for like hours to bake all the batches.

But I really could not resist making these Pineapple Tarts when I saw them in Ju's blog. I just knew I got to do it. And I'm glad I made it.

Just like Ju, I used store-bought pineapple jam. I bought mine from Bonjour and it was a no-brand packet of 1kg. I thought it looked a little wet and sticky but I just grabbed it too. Turned out ok when I rolled it into balls that night.

As for the pastry, I used my favourite SCS unsalted butter. The next morning, I cleared my dry-kitchen top to make space for me to roll my pastry. It was rather tricky working with the dough as it melted quite quickly. But I followed Ju's advice and worked only a little dough at a time. The rest was put back into the fridge cling-wrapped for later use.

And since this was my first time making it, I did not even know how to use the pineapple tart mould. Haha. As you can see, some of them they did not turn out very pretty. But I was impatient to continue so I did not care. Pretty or ugly, onto the tray they go.

Then I transferred the tray into my wet-kitchen which I then glazed them with egg-yolk before topping it with the pre-rolled pineapple jam. .

Don't they look pretty all nicely glazed and topped with the jam? They are them ready to be baked in the oven.

These are really a gem! They are really buttery-melt-in-my-mouth pastry as claimed by Ju. Fantastic! And I'm glad the pineapple jam are not too-sweet either. But I think I rolled the jam a little too big. Next time, I will roll smaller balls! ;)
But no one's complaining so far.

But it was really time consuming churning all these out from the oven. I really need a bigger oven. I made around 100 tarts with it.

Then I packed them into air-tight containers. Some are given to MIL, some to friends, but most of them for my family.
Mum is now complaining that I did not forewarn her that I will be making this. If I did, she would not order it from other people. She said these tasted really delicious! :)

Recipe: Pineapple Tarts (copied directly from The Little Teochew)

Pastry
- 400g plain flour
- 50g corn flour
- 1/4 (heaped) tsp salt
- 280g cold, unsalted butter (do not allow it to soften)
- 3 egg yolks, beaten
- 3 tbsp cold water (or iced water)
- 6 tbsp icing sugar
- 1/2 tsp cognac or pure vanilla extract
- For glaze, mix 1 egg yolk + 1 tbsp water

- store-bought pineapple jam, pre-rolled into balls (I bought mine from Bonjour, 1 kg)


1. Sift the flours, salt and icing sugar.

2. Using the pointed ends of a fork, rub the butter into the flour until it looks like fine bread crumbs. If necessary, use fingertips to continue rubbing lightly the bigger pieces into finer pieces. Basically, just scrape / flake the butter with your forks. You essentially want to coat the butter crumbs in flour. Using forks prevents the cold butter from melting since there is no contact with heat. If you want to rub the butter into the flour using your hands, make sure you use only your fingertips.

3. Beat together egg yolks, cold water and cognac (or vanilla extract). Add it into the butter-flour mixture. Using your finger tips, gently coax all the crumbs into one large dough ball. Do not knead. As long as all the crumbs come together, stop. Chill in the fridge for about 10mins, covered.

4. Roll out to desired thickness (mine was about 8mm thick). Cut out dough using cutter. Arrange neatly onto baking tray, with at least 1.5cm apart. Since this is a very buttery, oily pastry, it would be good to use a small portion at a time. Keep the rest covered in the fridge, otherwise it will ooze oil.

5. Once you have arranged the tart shells on your tray, glaze them (the entire surface, not just the rims).

6. Place the pre-rolled pineapple jam balls onto the centre of each tart shell.

7. Bake at 160 degrees celsius for 20-25 minutes, turning the tray halfway through baking. According to the original recipe, when placing jam onto the pastry, take caution not to smear jam onto the sides as this will easily “burn” and render the sides of the pastry (the flowery design) darker.

~ This recipe yields about 100 tarts.