PINEAPPLE TARTS

This biscuit is an all time favorite especially during the festive season. It's a compulsory biscuit for Hari Raya to my family, we can without other biscuits but not this pineapple tarts, London Almond and Arabian Cookies.

My late sister made a very good pineapple tarts. I made this recently for my daughter Tyca. I used the store bought pineapple jam and adapted the recipe from happyflour.com. You can make this biscuit during the non festival month. I still preferred the evergreen tarts as compared to the roll tarts.

Recipe for Pastry
(adapted mainly from Happyflour.com)
- 400g plain flour*
- 50g corn flour
- 1/4 (heaped) tsp salt
- 280g cold, unsalted butter (do not allow it to soften)
- 3 egg yolks, beaten
- 3 tbsp cold water (or iced water)
- 6 tbsp icing sugar**
- 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- For glaze, mix 1 egg yolk + 1 tbsp water

* Note that the original recipe called for 450g plain flour. I changed it to 400g plain flour + 50g corn flour to make the dough more "melty".
** The recipe called for 4 tsp castor sugar. I used 6 tbsp icing sugar in its stead. I read somewhere that icing sugar helps soft pastry dough keep their shape during baking.

1. Sift the flours, icing sugar and salt. Mix well to combine.

2. Using the pointed ends of a fork, rub the butter into the flour until it looks like fine bread crumbs. If necessary, use fingertips to continue rubbing lightly the bigger pieces into finer pieces. Basically, just scrape / flake the butter with your forks. You essentially want to coat the butter crumbs in flour. Using forks prevents the cold butter from melting since there is no contact with heat. If you want to rub the butter into the flour using your hands, make sure you use only your fingertips.

Beat together egg yolks, cold water and  (or vanilla extract). Add it into the butter-flour mixture. Using your finger tips, gently coax all the crumbs into one large dough ball. Do not knead. As long as all the crumbs come together, stop. Chill in the fridge for about 10mins, covered.

Roll out to desired thickness (mine was about 8mm thick). Cut out dough using cutter. Arrange neatly onto baking tray, with at least 1.5cm apart. Since this is a very buttery, oily pastry, it would be good to use a small portion at a time. Keep the rest covered in the fridge, otherwise it will ooze oil.

5. Once you have arranged the tart shells on your tray, glaze them (the entire surface, not just the rims).

6. Place the pre-rolled pineapple jam balls onto the centre of each tart shell.

7. Bake at 160°C for 20 minutes, turning the tray halfway through baking. According to the original recipe, when placing jam onto the pastry, take caution not to smear jam onto the sides as this will easily “burn” and render the sides of the pastry (the flowery design) darker. I did not have a problem with this because I used a very sticky, dry jam.

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Inilah biskut yang tak lapuk dek hujung dan tak lekang dek panas. Sentiasa menjadi kegemaran baik dalam apa jua perayaan, Gong Xi Fatt Cai, Idil Fitri mahupun Deepavali. Rasanya tidak complete perayaan tanpa biskut ini. Saya buat ini untuk anak saya Tyca, memang favorite Tyca, buat dalam satu adunan untuk dibawa bekal.  Untuk resipinya saya menggunakan resipi dari Happyflour. memang gebu tart ni dan cukup sedap.

Next Post - Gulai Singkong Jantung Pisang

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