Pineapple Tarts

Pineapple Tarts

Pineapple tart filling

This is one of the items I made this year for Chinese New Year– everything is from scratch… it’s very time consuming and yet the result is very rewarding. This is one of my family’s favorite.

Pineapple Tart Recipe (makes 75 pieces):

Pastry Ingredients:
2 (4oz)sticks + 2 tbsp butter
2 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup milk powder
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 egg

Filling: cooked pineapples (see below for recipe)– make into 75 small balls.

Glazing: 1 beaten egg yolk + few drops water

Method:

1. In a large bowl, microwave butter until soft (not melted).
2. Cream soften butter and icing sugar. Add egg and mix until well blended.
3. Sift flour and milk powder into butter mixture. Use a spatula to mix well to form a dough. The dough should be very soft (like play dough) and not sticky.
4. Divide dough into 75 portions and wrapping in the pineapple filling. Shape the tarts into log shape, use a fork to press on the top to make pineapple pattern, glaze the tarts and bake at 340°F for 20 minutes till golden.

Pineapple Filling (2 pineapples from Costco will yield about 90 small balls for pineapple tarts):

Ingredients:
2 large pineapples ( I used Golden Pineapples– 1 ripe and 1 unripe)
4 cloves
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1 1/2 cup sugar

Method:

1. Remove the skin, “eye” and core of pineapples, cut into pieces and blend in food processor until no visible chunks.
2. Cook blended pineapple in a big pot on medium high heat uncovered, add in cloves and cinnamon powder. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon until most of the juice almost dry out (yeah it’s very time consuming– it took me about 2.5~3 hrs).
3. When the juice is drying out and turning into pineapple jam like, turn the heat to medium or med. low. This is the point when you have to keep stirring to prevent burnt at the bottom. Add sugar (use more or less according to your taste, the flavor should be sweet and tangy) and keep stirring until the jam get thicker– you will feel it as your arm will be getting sore :). For enclosed pineapple tarts, cook the jam a bit more to get a drier consistency. Every cook top has different levels of heating elements so please adjust the heat according to your stove.
4. Let the jam cool completely before using in pineapple tarts. Keep in the fridge for up to 1 week or freeze until ready to use.

Note:

• Use ripe pineapple for flavor and unripe pineapple for texture/fiber. Squeeze out the juice before cooking definitely will cut down the cooking time, but the jam won’t be as flavorful… ok, to compromise maybe use only 1/2 or 2/3 of the juice next time?…
• Use a pot with larger surface for the liquid to evaporate faster. I use wooden spoon (with long handle) and let it stay in the pot the whole  time. It’s easy to stir and won’t pass the heat during the long cooking process.
• Corner Cafe posts a microwave method of cooking the filling, and it takes much less time of course…will try it out next time. (Note: my friend tried the microwave method, the filling is lighter in color but because pineapple juice was squeezed out, thus the pineapple filling is not very flavorful… hmmm maybe next time I will cook pineapple (with juice) on the stove till 1/3 of juice left then pop into microwave to cook some more– making the painful process a little faster??)
• Cook the filling a bit drier for enclosed pineapple tarts.
• Glazing: adding a couple drops of water will thin down the mixture and easier to glaze the tarts.
• I made the tarts smaller than usual so my boys can finish it in 1 bite then there will be less crumbs falling everywhere 🙂

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