Pineapple Tarts

Finally! My pineapple tart blog entry...

Pineapple tarts have always been my favorite, it had used to be my Chinese New Year indulgence. I remember we'd had to source for good pineapple tart "supplier" every year and we always order homemade pineapple tarts, never bought from the supermarket. Last year, I got a special request/ order for pineapple tarts. I thought, why not? Since I love pineapple tarts too. I had my ex-colleagues as my "guinea pigs" then, and although the pineapple jam was a success during the first time, the finalized dough for the tart pastry is the 5th recipe I tried.



Always go for homemade pineapple jam instead of the can or pre-packed ones, those are very "jelly" and you don't taste much of the pineapple, instead, you might be getting the pineapple taste from the pineapple essence and colouring. The best is to keep the ingredient of the pineapple jam to fresh pineapple and sugar only. For those who had done homemade jam before, you know how much effort this is, so don't complain about the price!

Pineapple tarts come in many different shape and design. The very first pineapple tart I had was the nyonya style, flower shape, opened-top type, and there will normally be a "cross" on top of the jam. I personally like the wrapped up type. Not the completely enclosed type though, because you get too much of pastry then. After experimenting a few design last year, I'd finally settled with this particular shape. Didn't had the time to take a picture of the mould, but basically, the same type of mould had got different style for the jagged area so you get slightly different pattern on the surface. So, it's another round of "hard work" for piping individual piece of pastry and carefully wrapping the jam one by one, it's quite a delicate task since the pastry is quite fragile. Again, don't complain about the price!

There you go, 100% pure pineapple jam made from fresh fruit, wrapped in a creamy melt-in-your-mouth pastry.