More Baking for Chinese New Year

Woohoo, only one more day until Chinese New Year! I had dinner with some of my girl friends last night to celebrate and gave them each a box of bunny cookies. Haha, I wish I had taken a picture, but one of them started petting the bunny. I think she might just keep it on her desk and not eat it :D I also included some pineapple tarts, and that's what I'm going to talk about today!


The first step to making pineapple tarts is to get a pineapple. I admit, I didn't look very hard, but I don't know if you can find ready-made pineapple jam in the supermarket. Anyway, I actually like making jam; even if it does take a fair amount of time, it's very simple. Peel your pineapple, remove the eyes, chop roughly, and then puree in a food processor (or a blender, or grate by hand). Pour the puree into a heavy-bottomed saucepan and add one clove, one star anise, and 1/2 to 1 cup of sugar, depending on how tart your pineapple is. Boil over medium low heat until it turns a dark amber color and is thick and sticky; oh, hey, you can go and look at the post I made about pineapple tarts two years ago to see what the jam should look like. Scrape into a bowl and refrigerate. You can do this a few days in advance.


The next thing is, decide whether you want to make closed (see post linked above) or open tarts. I had shamelessly asked my friend Kaimono if she would send me some pineapple tart molds so I went with open face! I like this style because you can see the yummy jam, and because I like the design of the cookie molds.


Look how many she sent! There are different sizes and patterns. Thank you, thank you!! :D I can tell I'm going to be using these for lots of cookie baking in the future, and not just pineapple tarts! Oh, and in case you're curious how they work, the cutters are in two pieces, one to cut the actual cookie, and then an inner piece that stamps the pattern and makes a well for the jam. Just make sure you roll your dough thick enough to accommodate a well (for these molds, I rolled dough to 1/4").


Roll your pineapple jam into balls and place one in each well. I guess you don't actually have to roll them into balls and could just scoop it with a small spoon or pipe it, but I like them to be neat! Plus then you get to lick your jammy fingers.


Before baking, you can glaze the cookies with an egg yolk-water glaze, or leave them plain. The ones above are glazed. (Aren't the tiny ones cute?)


And these are unglazed. I think I prefer them unglazed, actually, seems to make the pattern easier to see!

Okay, well we are in the midst of an ice storm, so I'm going to sign off and attempt to make it to work. One more post on CNY tomorrow :D Gong xi fa cai and xing nian kuai le to those of you who are ahead of U.S. time :D

CNY Pineapple Tarts, Step-by-step

Well, as promised previously, here is an in-detail post on the pineapple tarts I made for Chinese New Year. I think I originally saw a posting on them on Pigpig's Corner and then came across them again in an article in (of all places) the Wall Street Journal. They looked so good--how could I resist?

These types of pineapple tarts (or balls, as I was calling them until someone at work made me start referring to them as tarts) are not a tradition in my family (judging from the blogs I read while looking for recipes, they seem primarily to be popular in Singapore and Malaysia); I've eaten pineapple shortcakes before, but these are totally different in texture. I cobbled a recipe together from various sources, although the pastry dough is primarily taken from Masak-masak's post.

Anyway enough rambling on with the recipe!

Step 1: Get yourself a pineapple. (See above!)


Step 2: Make pineapple naked and remove eyes. I only had a cleaver at my disposal, but I recommend using something smaller, like a paring knife. Remove core, and roughly chop the pineapple into chunks.


Step 3: Throw pineapple chunks into food processor. Blend until mostly smooth, then transfer puree to a heavy bottomed pot, and add about a cup of sugar, a star anise, and a clove. You may need more or less sugar depending on how sweet your pineapple is. Simmer for a long, long time. A LONG time. Stir frequently. Keep simmering until the puree has turned into an amber, sticky jam.


Step 4: After jam has cooled, roll it into balls approximately the size of a marble. Resist the urge to eat the jam straight up.


Step 5: Make pastry. (See bottom of post for recipe.) Roll pastry into slightly larger balls. Curse when you realize the number of pineapple balls doesn't correspond with the number of pastry balls.

Step 6: MAGIC. Okay, really, I just didn't take a picture of the filling process because it requires two hands. Basically you want to take your ball of dough, flatten it out with your fingers (try to make the edges thinner and the center thicker, like you would for a dumpling) and then seal a ball of pineapple jam inside. Try to keep the jam on the inside.


Step 7: If you aren't tired of pineapple tarts, use your knife to score a pattern on top of each one. Brush with an egg yolk glaze. (You should have your oven preheated to 375 degrees F.)


Step 8: About 20 minutes later, pineapple tarts! Admire their crackly brown gorgeousness. Resist urge to bite into one immediately, cause that jam gets really hot. Take lots of photos while they cool.


Step 9: Enjoy! Enjoy it fully, because they won't be back for a whole year :)

Pineapple tart dough
3 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks butter, cold and chopped into chunks
1 whole egg plus 1 egg yolk

Combine flour, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse briefly to combine. Add cold butter and pulse again until the mixture is the texture of coarse cornmeal. While the machine is running, add in the egg and egg yolk. Pulse until the dough starts to form clumps. Dump onto a clean work surface and knead briefly until smooth.