Pineapple Tarts...

Let me back track some of the stuff I've made so far this year... 

Earlier this year, our Home Fellowship (HF) decided that we should celebrate Chinese New Year by everyone needs to bring in a New Year dish. As usual, dessert is my responsibility for the night! Making Chinese food has never been my strength, and Chinese dessert is no exception. The best I've ever done for Chinese dessert is probably papaya snow fungus sweet soup, and 楊枝甘露, nothing more complicated! So this time, a Chinese New Year dessert was definitely a challenge! 

After many considerations... 湯丸, 糖不甩, 煎堆... at the end, I've decided to go with 鳳梨酥!

Well.... it wasn't actually as hard as I thought! It was actually like a Western shortcrust pastry dessert but with pineapple filling!

Pineapple Tarts

Filling:

2 cans of shredded pineapple

150g sugar

1 clove

1 cinnamon stick

1 star anise

150g liquid glucose

2tbsp flour

1. Drain the pineapple till dry, then simmer in a wok till the juice dried up. Add sugar, star anise, cinnamon stick and clove.

2. Stir till the pineapple has thickened and dry, then add the liquid glucose.

3. Stir till the filling becomes thick and sticky. (Don't over cook, otherwise the filling will become too hard!)

4. Add flour, then continue to stir till dry. (around 10 min)

5. Leave to cool, then shape into balls

Pastry:

250g butter

50g icing sugar

2 egg yolks

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1/4 tsp salt

1 egg yolk (for glazing)

350g plain flour

50g corn flour

1. Cream butter and sugar together until light in texture. Beat in egg yolks one at a time. Add vanilla essence and salt, whisk until fluffy

2. Fold in the sifted flours to form a dough. It should be dry and crumbly. 

3. Roll a tbsp of dough into a 5-7cm long tube, then flatten to a thickness of about 5mm.

4. Place the filling on the edge of the strip and roll it up to form a small elongated roll.

5. Place the roll on a baking paper lined baking tray. Repeat until the filling and dough are all used up. 

6. Preheat oven to 180C. Brush the rolls with egg yolk. Bake for 20 min or golden brown. Cool on wire rack and store in airtight container. 

See... it's not so hard afterall! =)