NYONYA PINEAPPLE TARTS

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INGREDIENTS:

Makes about 150 tarts

Pineapple jam:

    2 medium-size pineapples, grated

    300g sugar

    Some cinnamon and star arise (optional)

METHOD:

1. Cook grated pineapple in a pot with sugar for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

2. Cook until the pineapple jam starts to leave the sides of the pot. Remove from stove and set aside to cool.

3. Roll jam into small balls, as shown in Pic. 1.

Tart pastry:

    300g butter

    130g margarine

    100g icing sugar

     80g milk powder

    1 egg

    600g cake/superfine flour

    30g custard powder

METHOD:

1. Preheat oven at 170-180 deg C.

2. Cream butter and margarine in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy.

3. Add egg and beat well.

4. Sift icing sugar, milk powder, flour and custard powder into the mixture. Fold to incorporate all ingredients to form a smooth pastry dough.

For flowery pattern:

1. Roll out the dough till it's about 0.7 cm thick. Cut into shapes with a pineapple tart mould (Pic. 2).

2. Brush sides of tarts with egg wash. Bake in a greased, lined baking tin (Pic. 3) for 10 minutes.

3. Remove tarts from the oven. Fill centre of tarts with some pineapple jam. Return tarts to oven to bake for a further 10 minutes, or until golden brown.

4. Cool the tarts on wire rack.

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

For pineapple rolls:

1. Place some pastry dough into mould. Using your thumbs, pipe dough of about 5cm in length. Place a jam ball on it and roll the pastry up to enclose the jam (Pic. 5).

2. Brush tarts with egg wash. Bake in a greased, lined baking tin (Pic. 6) for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

3. Cool the tarts on wire rack.

NOTES:

1. Amount of sugar is for guidance only. Please adjust this amount according to size and sweetness of your pineapples.
2. I did not add cinnamon and star arise into my pineapple jam, because of their strong smell. However, jam of traditional Nyonya style pineapple tarts does have these spices.
3. For the preparation of pineapple jam, what I did was cook the jam a day before I wanted to make the tarts. Set the jam aside to cool and then refrigerated the jam overnight. I found the jam was much easier to handle and roll (not too sticky) the next day.
4. For the flowery patterned pineapple tarts, my experience told me that if I placed the jam in the beginning instead of half way through the baking, jam would become too dry and shrink.