Searching for the Best Enclosed Pineapple Tarts...

Seeing what the three recipes of pineapple tarts that I have baked and investigated last year, you should have know that I'm an extreme pineapple tarts lover...

I can never have enough of pineapple tart! You can say that I'm totally pineapple-tart obsessed!!! Yes, I am! LOL!

This year, I'm going to bake and investigate a few more pineapple tart recipes, particularly the enclosed ones. More pineapple tart recipes??? Yup!!!

These are the three recipes that I am baking this year. Why these??? Here are my reasons...

One from Sonia of Nasi Lemak Lover
If you Google for "pineapple tart" or "melt in the mouth pineapple tart", the top hit is always this Sonia's recipe... Oh!
I remember seeing that many many many many many food bloggers including Jeannie, Mel and Kuan Yoon had baked this recipe and they all love it... Oh!
Clearly, is this a must-bake recipe?... Oooh!!!

Two from Angel of Cook.Bake.Love
The title of this pineapple tart recipe says it all... Warning: Highly Addictive!!!
... I'm totally convinced!

Three from Anne of My Bare Cupboard
Anne is a great baking friend of mine who clearly detect my obsession with pineapple tarts... LOL! After baking and tested these Taiwanese-style pineapple tarts, she knew that I will like these! Great minds think alike... We must be!!! - LOL!

Without saying much, I like to proceed on the baking and analysis of these recipes... for Chinese New Year 2014, my family, bake-along with Joyce from Kitchen Flavours and Lena from Frozen wings and my pineapple tart obsession!

Pineapple tarts: Recipe from Sonia of Nasi Lemak Lover

Pineapple tarts: Recipe from Angel of Cook.Bake.Love

Taiwanese pineapple tarts: Recipe from Anne of My Bare Cupboard

To standardise, I'm using the good quality Danish butter to bake all these tarts.

These are the custard powder and milk powder that I used.

Sonia's and Angel's recipes use all-purpose flour but Anne uses cake flour.

Sonia's and Angel's recipes use condensed milk too and I'm using the 99% fat free one.

The pineapple paste that I used is homemade and this time, I cooked it with pandan leaves.

The three pastry doughs that I have made

Pineapple tarts made with Sonia's recipe

Pineapple tarts made with Angel's recipe

Taiwanese pineapple tarts made with Anne's recipe. The tart mould that is too long to fit on my baking trays and so I baked them on a rack instead which form lines on my tarts' surface. The next time, I will buy and use the individual moulds instead.

Now the taste test... nom nom nom nom nom...

Sonia's recipe: Melt in our mouth instantly! Oooooh!!!

Angel's recipe: Buttery with a light crisp... True!

Anne's recipe: Very short and crumbly with a nice milky taste... Yum!

All are extremely delicious... and we like Sonia's recipe the best! We will tell you why...

 
Here's the comparison table showing three of the pineapple tart pastry recipes.
(with my notes and modification in blue) 

Like what I did previously, I have tabulated and compared these three pineapple tart recipes by standardising their butter content to 100g in order to have a better understanding their differences.

 
I have standardised all by using lightly salted Lurpurk slightly salted Danish butter and Nestle 99% fat free sweetened condensed milk. 

I recommend to use the type of flour mentioned as accordingly as I have used cake flour instead of all purpose flour to bake one of my favourite pineapple tart recipe (by Little Teochew) before but everything fell apart because there is not enough protein to hold the pastry. 

Method from Nasi Lemak Lover
 
Cream butter and condensed milk till light. Add in egg yolk one at a time, and beat until combine. Mix in flour till become a soft and not sticky dough.
 
Roll pineapple filling into ball (8g each) and roll dough into ball (10g each). - I didn't weigh the filling and dough and divided them with my rough estimation.

Flatten a piece of dough and place a piece of the roll pineapple filling in the middle. Bring the edges of the dough together and press lightly to seal. Roll it in between your palms to shape it into a roll. Cut few lines on the pineapple balls to create pineapple pattern, apply egg wash with a brush.

Bake in preheated oven at 165°C fan forced for 23 mins or till golden brown. Cool completely before storing.

Using this recipe with 100g of butter, I baked 28 pineapple tarts at 160°C fan forced for 20 mins.
 
Method from Cook.Bake.Love
 
Sift flour and milk powder together 3 times but I did just once. Beat butter, sugar, condensed milk and vanilla until creamy. Add egg and mix well.
 
Use the lowest speed of the mixer to fold in all dry ingredients in 3 batches then use a rubber spatula to scrape the bowl and fold in any remaining flour (do not over mix).
 
Wrap dough with cling wrap and chill for 30 mins to firm it up. Take 1/2 level tbsp of dough, roll into ball, lightly flatten and wrap with one pineapple ball. Suggest keeping half of the dough in fridge while wrapping.

Arrange on lined baking tray or use small paper case to hold it.
 
Bake in preheated oven at 180°C (or 160°C fan forced) for about 8-10 mins, upper middle rack. Take out from oven, apply egg wash and return to oven to bake for another 5-6 mins till cooked.

Using this recipe with 100g of butter, I baked 28 pineapple tarts at 160°C fan forced for first 10 mins, then I applied egg wash on the tarts and baked them again for 8 mins.

Method from My Bare Cupboard 

Preheat oven at 200°C / 180°C or 160°C fan forced.

Divide pineapple filling into 8 (or 6) portions and shape into balls; set aside .
 
Sift the cake flour, icing sugar, milk powder and custard powder into a medium bowl. Add butter into the flour mixture and rub with fingertips until mixture resembles bread crumbs, tip it in into a clean surface and knead to form a soft dough . Divide into 8 (or 6) pieces.
 
Fill each dough with the pineapple filling, shape into a ball, make sure that the filling is well-wrapped. Put into a pineapple pastry mould; press with palm from top, turn it over and press the other side. Put on the baking sheet with parchment paper.

Bake in a preheated over at 180°C for about 25 mins or until golden brown. Flip once during baking . Set in a wire rack to cool before unmolding .
 
Using this recipe with 100g of butter, I baked 6 pineapple tarts at 160°C fan forced for 25 mins. I flipped the tarts once in the middle of baking.

I'm using my homemade pineapple jam to bake all pineapple tarts and the recipe can found here and I have cooked the jam with 3 pandan leaves, knotted. 

My enclosed pineapple tart analysis:

You have to believe me that all the pineapple tarts that I have baked with these three recipes are all fantastic but if we really really really have to choose, I would say Sonia's recipe is the best. Why? 

We are the type of pineapple tarts eaters that adore melt-in-the-mouth texture. After having our taste test, my desperate son said that the pineapple tarts with the crisscross lines are all his and forbid us to touch them... Ai yo! Being the "CC camera" of my kitchen, I have observed that my husband had sneakily ate lots of the crisscross lined ones. Eventually, both my husband and son had "kindly" left the non-crisscross lined ones for me to eat!!! Well, the answer is clear. Isn't it???

Based on my opinion, I have to say that handling and baking these pineapple tarts using Sonia's and Angel's recipes are really super-easy. The reason might be because the weather in Melbourne including our summer is not as commonly hot and humid as the weather in Singapore or Malaysia. Nevertheless, it is always good that we chill the pastry doughs before handling but not overly chilled as the overly chilled dough made with these two recipes can be brittle and not flexible enough to handle.

In contrast, the pastry made with Anne's recipe is extremely crumble and difficult to handle. Like what Anne did, I should have add egg yolk to moisten the pastry but I didn't because I was keen to try the recipe in its most original form. No doubt that the crumbs of the tarts made with Anne's recipe are everywhere but interestingly, the texture and taste develop and improve after the tarts were stored in room temperature after 2-3 days.

Within a week, all these pineapple tarts were all gone!!! Ai yo... and it is not even Chinese New Year yet...  ok ok... gotta bake some more...

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Please note that the linky tool for bake-along is no longer available.