Pineapple Tarts

Each time when Chinese New Year is round the corner, I'll whip up a batch of painstakingly made pineapple tarts for giveaways & own consumption. I think these pineapple tarts should be called giant tarts ! These are much bigger than the regular ones you see packed in plastic containers, available everywhere now.

I've always make my own pineapple tarts from scratch & will never buy ready-made ones. Firstly, those mass produced ones are probably made using margarine which is a no-no for me, secondly they use ready-packed pineapple paste.

The recipe is adapted from Betty Yew's book. I've made adjustment to the portion & this is mine :

420g Plain flour
420g Self-raising flour
300g Icing sugar

450g Butter, diced
150g Ground almonds
3 Tsp vanilla extract
3 Eggs, lightly beaten
Cloves for decoration

Put sifted dry ingredients into the bowl of a food processor fitted with a cutting blade. Put in the butter & blend until mixture resembles breadcrumbs, stir in ground almonds. Add vanilla extract, beaten eggs, mix to a smooth dough. Wrap up the dough & chill for 30 mins.

To make sure all tarts are the same size, I've weighed each dough ball, at 25g each. Flatten each pc of dough with lightly floured hands. Place a cherry-sized (original recipe says this but mine is definitely bigger than a cherry size, can't think of something suitable to describe my filling size now) ball of pineapple jam in the centre, wrap & seal well.

Roll into pineapple shape. Snip the surface of the pastry with a small pair of scissors to form pineapple patterns. Stick on a pc of clove on one end to represent the stem. Place on greaseproof paper on a baking tray. Brush with egg yolk mixture. Bake in preheated oven of 180C for 15-20 mins or until golden brown.

Pineapple Jam :

6kg Pineapples, peeled, cleaned & cut into chunks
3 Pandan leaves, knotted
Sugar, to taste

Blend pineapple chunks in a blender, pour into a sieve to let the juices drain. Put the pineapple pulp in a large saucepan & cook on high heat for 15 mins. Add sugar & knotted pandan leaves. Cook & stir over medium heat for about an hour, or until jam is thick. Remove pandan leaves & let cool.

I've used the sweet honey pineapple so I didn't follow the original recipe which should be using at least 500g of sugar for my portion of pineapples. I've only added about 8 Tbsp of sugar (120g) when cooking the jam. The pineapples are so sweet that I've kept the drained juices for our own consumption.
For the above portion, I managed to make 65 tarts.