CNY Bake - Pineapple Tarts

It's that long-awaited time of year again with lots of blogs ablaze with cookies of all sorts. My biscuit of choice is pineapple tarts. Even if I do not bake anything else this year, the least I have to do is tarts. Why? Simple! I love them to bits! Especially soft, melt in the mouth ones. The crispy ones don't get me so excited, but I will still eat them. Just not so much of a shiok factor. I made three versions of it on Monday. You know, it's not easy to get myself started on baking another lot, for the sole reason that it is a lot of tedious work, especially when I have to do it all by myself. Baking cookies for CNY is fun when many people come together, or even 2 or 3 people, and it makes the process shorter.

First up is nestar tarts. These look so pretty but were very time consuming. I made 15 of them before throwing in the towel. I first piped them out into long strips, then placed rolled up pineapple jam on them before rolling the pastry over that. Leave the dough too long and it dries up and makes it difficult to roll, and they will fall apart.

Waiting to go in the oven.

The second lot of tarts I made resembled Mandarin oranges. I achieved that effect by putting cloves into the top of them.

Didn't bother taking out the dslr for this shot as it was already late at night. These below are cheese pineapple tarts. I did them like the ones above but instead of clove, I scattered cheddar over the top.

What is your favourite type of tart?

Happy Year of the Ox

I hardly baked this year, except for my favourite pineapple tarts, which I made once last week, just to try out the recipe, and yesterday, together with princess, we made more. She was in charge of brushing the eggwash on, as well as sticking the cloves in. :)

I made half a batch with cheese on top. It's quite popular these days to find tarts with cheese. I guess the saltiness of the cheese goes very well with the sweetness of the jam, and it replaces the salt in the recipe.

A very Happy New Year to one and all. May the Year of the Ox bring us abundant blessings.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Pineapple Tarts

This is not the first batch of tarts that I've made this year. Well, the first ones were made at a friend's place and by the time I realised the oven was what was causing the pineapple jam to harden, the last tray of tarts were already in... too late. I'm really lazy to bake anything this year, what with Christmas just having ended, the little one's birthday, start of school etc, I don't feel the Chinese New Year mood at all. However, I came across this recipe in the Sunday Times yesterday and wanted immediately to try it. I had all the ingredients, but only had enough butter for half the recipe, so I did just that. Made about 25 tarts with some dough leftover for at least 6-7 more, even though according to the recipe, a full recipe would yield 40 tarts. I think it could easily produce 70 at least. These tarts are very soft and fragile. I destroyed one when my glove accidently pressed on it while removing tray from oven. They are lovely, except I found them just a tad dry. The tart sticks to your entire mouth and you can't talk after. Need to wash it down with some water.

The recipe is as follows. I will only post the tart recipe as I used ready pineapple jam.

Ingredients -

250g butter, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 egg yolk
440g plain flour
1 tbs milk powder
a pinch of salt (I added this in myself)
pineapple filling
1 egg, beaten


Method -

1. Preheat oven to 165 deg C.

2. Cream butter and vanilla essence on medium speed for about 10 mins (I did everything manually).

3. Add the yolk and continue mixing for about 2 mins till well incorporated.

4. Sift the flour and then the milk powder into the mixture. Mix on low speed for 2mins before increasing it to medium speed for 3mins, until a coarse, crumbly texture forms.

5. Place the mixture in a large bowl and knead it for about 5mins until a smooth ball of dough forms.

6. Leave dough in the bowl, seal it with a clear plastic wrap, and chill in fridge for approximately 20mins.

7. Remove dough from fridge, pinch a small amount and roll it to form a ball, flatten and fill it with jam.

8. Brush with egg wash and bake in oven for 15mins until tarts turn golden.