My Express Homemade Pineapple Tarts

The word, pineapple in the Chinese Hokkien dialect, "On-Lai" has a meaning of inviting prosperity. In Singapore, pineapple is served in form of pastry to family members and guests for its good meaning for the Chinese new year. For me, my Chinese New Year is never a festival without pineapple tarts. The traditional pineapple tarts brings back great memory of my childhood. I remember the good old days when my grandma and I filled up lots of recycled Milo or Horlick metal tins with our freshly baked pineapple tarts.

Back then, we don't have an electric mixer, a food processor, an stainless steel oven or even a weighing balance. My grandma is illiterate and she didn't have a recipe book. All we did was to mix a packet of plain flour, a large tin of Planta margarine and 2-3 eggs together and we added extra flour subsequently for easy handling of rolled pastry. About less than a decade back in Singapore, I was given a jar of very delicious homemade pineapple tarts, and so I asked my friend for her mum's recipe. From that point, I then realized that we aren't the only one who use this conventional method of making shortcrust pastry, her mum used about the same combination to make her pineapple tarts too...that's interesting to know.

I would say the most challenging part of making these tarts is the pineapple filling. We didn't have shopping trolley at the olden days and had to carry these juicy but heavy fresh pineapple from the market to home. The chopping, grating and squeezing of these pineapple really toughened our arm muscles. Lastly, standing in front of a hot stove for hours, stirring a large pot of pineapple jam in a tropical climate is definitely not a joke.

I admire my grandma's efforts for making these tiny buttery sweet treats from scratch. Despite all these enormous effort, my grandma and I love all these cooking and baking. I remembered decorating the tarts with lots of "ABCs" and "123s" and happily "punishing" myself by eating the "ugly" faulty tarts. We created lots of laughter in the kitchen as well, not just food.

Today, I am baking these pineapple tarts using my express methods. To satisfy my craving for a freshly baked pineapple tart, all I need is just a couple of hours, a microwave to make pineapple filling starting from a tin of pineapple. I must say that the festive feeling is different having these pineapple tarts away from home but at least the making of them brought back great memories.

Here's the recipe for the pineapple filling using microwave method from Corner cafe (with my modification in blue).

Ingredients
2kg whole pineapple (weight with top off)
330 (1 1/2 cups) white granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3cm cinnamon quill * (I didn't use this)
3 cloves * (I didn't use this)
1 segment of a star anise * (I didn't use this)

*These spices are what make the Pineapple tarts what they are, aroma of the South East Asia, but you may omit them if you prefer.
1. Peel and remove eyes from the pineapple. Using a coarse grater, grate the pineapple, discard core. You should now have about 1.25kg of grated pineapple.
2. Drain the grated pineapple. Then lightly squeeze the pulp with your hands to remove excess juice. You should now have about 3 cups (750ml) of pineapple juice and 2 cups (500g) of moist pineapple pulp. Don’t squeeze it too dry. If you have squeezed the pulp too dry, you have to add about 1/2 cup juice back to the pulp when you start cooking it in the next step of preparation.
3. Put the pineapple pulp into a microwave-safe jug. Add sugar, salt and spices. (Add 1/2 cup pineapple juice if the pulp is squeezed really dry.)
4. Stir all the ingredients to mix well before starting to microwave.
5. Microwave, uncovered, on HIGH for 10 minutes. Remove from microwave and give it a stir, be careful of the hot steam.
6. Return to microwave and cook on HIGH for another 10 minutes. Remove, don’t stir, and see if the surface of the filling is level or lumpy. If the filling has become lumpy but still soft, it is done. Remove and let cool, be very careful as the filling is extremely hot at this stage! If not, give it a stir and continue to cook but for only 1 minute each time, and check each time until the filling has just start to become firm and clump together. After cooking for 20 minutes, the filling is still moist.
This should be the consistency of the done pineapple filling, the mixture has formed peaks and not flattened out to a level surface.
7. If you have overcooked the filling and it has set hard after cooling, just add some pineapple juice and put back into the microwave and cook on LOW for 1 minute. Give it a vigorous stir to soften. If it is still too hard, continue to add more juice and cook on LOW setting until the filling
is soft but lumpy. Makes approx. 500g filling

I used 1 can (425g) of pineapple in juice and yield 120g of crushed and squeezed pineapple pulp. I've added 30g sugar and 150ml of juice into the pineapple pulp and microwave it on HIGH, uncovered for 5 min. Stir and microwave again on HIGH, uncovered for 5 min. Stir and microwave it on HIGH, uncovered for 6-7 min interrupting every 2 min interval to check if the pineapple is overcooked. Do not stir at each interruption. The pineapple jam is ready when it has a little translucent jam-like look and usually slighter darker in colour. 

As the pineapple was cooked being uncovered in the microwave, there was lots of sticky pineapple bits stuck inside the microwave and the cleaning can be quite a chore...using warm water to wipe can help.  

Here's the recipe for my friend's mum's pineapple tart pastry:

1 kg flour
3 x 250g butter
3 eggs

These pastry may be slightly too soft for rolling and more suitable for Nastar type of pineapple tarts.

My pastry is:

100g flour
1 egg yolk
50g butter

1. Place all in the bowl of a food processor; process until mixture is the texture of coarse meal.
2. Add a little milk to process until a dough forms.
3. Wrap in plastic; chill until firm, at least 15 min.
4. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line baking tray with baking paper. Roll dough to 4-5mm thickness on floured surface. Cut dough into desired shapes and place a teaspoonful of pineapple filling on it. Brush with milk. Bake for 8-10 min or until edges are firm. Cool for 10 min on baking tray. cool completely on a wire rack.

All with the filling made from 1 pineapple can (425g) made 15 tarts, has some pastry as leftover. I baked these leftover pastry as bits and pieces and my son loves feasting on them...LOL

Happy Baking
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