Nyonya Pineapple Tarts

It is coming to Chinese Lunar New Year (3 Feb 2011), and in any Chinese families you are sure to find pineapple tarts together with many other delicacies being served. I have always been a big fan for pineapple tarts and I am really picky on where I can buy really good ones when I was living in Singapore.


I decided to take up the challenge to make my own. And happened to find this simple recipe to start off with. 

Ingredients:
For Pineapple filling
1000g Pineapple (I bought some Queensland Pineapples)
300g sugar
pinch of salt
6cm cinnamon stick

For Pastry
(A) 220g butter, 80g icing sugar
(B) 1 egg, 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
(C) 350g flour, 2 tbsps milk powder

To make the pineapple filling, peel pineapple and cut them into cubes. Put them into a blender to blend them to fine. Squeeze out the water or juice before pouring them into a wok to cook. Add in salt and cinnamon stick and cook till it thickens. Then set aside to cool.

To make pastry for the tart, cream mixture (A) using electric mixer. Next add in mixture (B) and continue to cream till smooth. Lastly sieve in flour and milk powder - mixture (C) and mix till well blended. Next wrap the dough using plastic firm and cool it in the fridge. For ease to work with dough, it is best to leave dough overnight.

Shape pineapple fillings into 1.5cm small balls. Pineapple fillings need to be really dry or slight moist to be able to do this.

Next roll the cool dough between 2 tracing sheets to 5mm thick, cut it with pineapple tart cutter.

Put cut pastry onto a greased pan and place a small ball of pineapple paste on the centre. Roll out a small piece of pastry into a thin strip and place it on top of the pineapple paste to make a cross.

Brush with egg wash and bake at 180 degree for 15-20 minutes.