Pineapple Tarts I

Time really flies. In the wink of an eye, today is already Chinese New Year's eve. Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous new year! So, will start off with a prosperous sounded cookie.....pineapple tart.

I cheated a bit and bought pineapple paste instead of making my own. The pastry tasted crunchy and crispy, the kind of texture which I personally like, not those soft buttery type where the pastry sticks to the teeth. After baking, the jam is a little bit hardened, not sure if I should use pineapple jam instead of a paste. The paste is not the soft type, so it makes rolling the jam a lot easier. Could it be that it's the nature of open pineapple tarts to have the jam slightly hardened because the paste is heated directly? Or maybe I have overbaked the tarts? Hmm....guess I would need to bake a few more times to get my type of perfect pineapple tarts.

I adapted the pastry from http://auntyyochana.blogspot.com/2007/02/lattice-pineapple-tarts.html

Pastry ingredients:

• 125g salted butter (I used Golden Churn butter, good butter really tasted a whole lot of difference)
• 45g icing sugar
• 1/2 egg
• 1/4 tsp vanilla essence
• 190g Plain Flour
• 1 tbsp soy milk powder

For glazing: 1 egg yolk + a little water (just a little bit of water)

Method:

1. Cream butter and sugar then add in egg and vanilla essence and blend till well combined.
2. Add in flour and milk powder and mix till a dough is formed.
3. Roll out the dough to 5 mm. thick. Cut out the dough with a pineapple tart cutter.
4. Place pastry into the greased tray and place a small round ball of pineapple jam on the centre of cut out pastry.
5. Roll a small pieces of dough into thin strips and place it on topof the pineapple jam to make a cross.
6. Brush with egg glaze and bake at 170 degree C for about 15 - 20 minutes or till the pastry is golden.
7. Leave the pineapple tarts to cool on wire rack before storing in a cookie container.

Cooling on a wire rack.