Considered as festive tarts, these are very popular during Lunar New Year. And with Chinese New Year around the corner, I thought of making these melt-in-mouth fruit tarts.
Freshly baked with no preservatives, these small buttery pastries with pineapple filling and with just the right amount of sweetness is something one will not stop raving about.
This Pineapple tart recipe is absolutely delicious, easy and totally satisfying.
Here's how these are made:
Ingredients:
There are two parts to this recipe.
Part A. Pineapple Filling.
This beautiful filling or Jam is sweet, with the hint of spices like star anise, cloves and cinnamon, moist and sticky. A little time consuming but totally worth your time. Btw, you could find the pineapple paste or filling in the baking isle of every grocery store here in Singapore all year round.
600 grams of fresh pineapple peeled and cut in small cubes or 3 cans of store bought sliced pineapples drained and squeezed.
1/2 cup sugar
3 cloves
1 inch cinnamon stick
1 small star anise
Part B. Pineapple Cookies or Tarts
This buttery, crumbly pastry is super delicious and fun to make. The dough is a little fragile and that's how it's supposed to be for the tarts to be melt-in-mouth delicious.
250 grams unsalted butter at room temperature
50 grams icing sugar or confectioners sugar
2 egg yolks
350 grams plain flour
50 grams milk powder
1/2 teaspoon salt. If using salted butter, skip salt.
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Part C. Egg Wash
1 egg
1 tablespoon of milk
PartD. Pineapple Tart Mould
1 Pineapple tart mould.
Method:
Part A. Pineapple Filling.
This though easy is a very time consuming process. And Hence I would recommend making the filling a day in advance. If you wish to avoid taking this trouble, you could simply buy a store bought Pineapple paste which I did.
If you are using a fresh pineapple, then peel, wash and cut in big chunks and set aside.
If you are using canned pineapples, then simple drain and use the cubes of pineapple.
Put the pineapple chunks in a blender and make a coarse paste. This will be runny once done and that's fine.
In a thick bottom pan, pour the blended pineapple mixture.
Place the pan on Medium high heat.
Add the spices and half of the sugar (25 grams) to the mixture and bring the mixture to boil.
Ensure that you are continuously stirring the mixture to avoid sticking to the bottom and burning.
Once the mixture starts to boil and is starting to come together, lower the heat to medium low.
Stir every few minutes to avoid burning.
Continue cooking on low heat until the mixture has lost all its moisture and is thick and sticky in consistency.
Now is the time to add the remaining sugar. We do this is adjust the sweetness and also to avoid caramelizing of sugar in turn resulting in burning of pineapple paste.
Once the paste is nice golden brown in colour, remove the spices and discard.
Cool the paste.
This delicious pineapple paste can be used right away to make the tarts or sealed and stored in an airtight container for upto a month in the refrigerator until needed.
Once you are ready to make the tarts, weigh out and roll the pineapple paste into balls of about 9g each. Grease your hands to ease the process. I used a digital scale for weighing. Set the rolled pineapple balls aside.
Part B. Dough for the Tarts.
In a mixing bowl, add the room temperature butter and sifted icing sugar. Start creaming the butter and icing sugar at low speed until all icing sugar is well combined into the butter. Then increase the speed and cream until the butter mixture is light and creamy.
Now add the egg yolks one at a time. Cream until the eggs are combined into the mixture.
Add the vanilla extract and beat again.
In a separate bowl, sift the plain flour, salt and the milk powder and keep it aside.
Slowly in two batches, add the sifted flour mixture and mix it on low speed until well combined and dough comes together. Do not overdo the dough. Over mixing will result is a slightly tougher crust.
Once the dough is formed, wrap it in a plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Once cooled, bring out the dough and weigh them in 15 grams each ball.
Part C. Wrapping the Tarts
Now that the pineapple paste is rolled into balls and the dough is ready, it's time to wrap the tarts.
Preheat the oven to 180°C and line your baking tray with a baking paper.
Now, grease your palms with little butter, flatten the dough ball into 5 cms diameter discs. Thickness of the disc can be around .5 cms.
There are two ways of making pineapple tarts. Open faced and Closed.
For the open faced tarts, you would need a tart mould. once you have rolled out the dough disc of 5 cms, use the mould and cut the disc in the shape of the mould. Gently remove the mould and place the ball of pineapple filling in the centre of the disc. Done. Your open faced tarts are ready.
Place these on the baking tray and bake them for 15 minutes.
For closed tarts, again grease your palms with little butter, flatten the dough ball into 5 cms diameter discs. Thickness of the disc can be around .5 cms. Now seal the pineapple ball with the dough by gathering the sides of the dough completely.
Repeat the process and finish the whole batch. Your unbaked tarts are ready.
Place the tarts on the prepared baking sheet. With the help of a basting brush, gently brush the egg wash on the tarts.
Bake the tarts in a preheated oven of 180°C in the middle rack for 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes, the tarts should turn golden brown in color. That's when you know they are done.
Remove the baking tray from the oven and allow the tarts to cool down before serving them.
Part D. Preparing the Egg wash.
In a small bowl, add one whole egg and one tablespoon of milk and with the help of a fork, blend well. Your egg wash is ready.
Tada!!!!!
Your festive, gorgeous looking pineapple tarts are ready and trust me, though the whole batch will make 50-60 tarts, they will vanish in no time. you won't stop at one I bet.
Enjoy my friends. Have a great Lunar New Year and may this year bring the best of everything in your lives.
Loads of Love!
I packed a box full of closed pineapple tarts for one of our very dear friends and this is how it got gifted.
Thank You!
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