May 8, 2007
Pineapple Tarts - Can I Bake To Save My Life?
Can I bake Pineapple Tarts to save my life? The answer is “Not yet”. The fingers on my two hands are enough for me to count the number of times to date I have baked whatever-that-can-be-considered-baking, so I qualify to be called a newbie baker.
I made a Pineapple Upside Down Cake when I was in Secondary 2 Home Economics Class. That was when I was 14 years old. I actually scored 8 out of 10 for that assignment, would you believe it? After that, the baking streak in me started to disappear as I get older.
I don’t know why I am suddenly interested in making Pineapple Tarts. This is a Chinese New Year goodie and we are nowhere near Chinese New Year now. Maybe it’s because my friend Angela recently took out all her baking gear and will be going full force into baking her delicious crunchy raisin cookies and trying out other new cake recipes, so I decided to follow suit and bake something. Pineapple Tarts were the first thing that came to my mind.
I bought the Pineapple Tart mould from Phoon Huat, Singapore’s leading supplier of bakery, beverage and confectionery ingredients. I had also bought a few other types of mould which I hope to be using to make other kinds of local kueh from Singapore. Wish me luck :)
I had mixed feelings about how these Pineapple Tarts turned out. For the first batch, I used the mould wrongly. What a dork! Notice how some of the tarts were “taller” than others? Also, the colour of the pastry was not what I had desired. I was looking for a light yellow pastry, not something so brown. Angela said that this could be because I had used the top tray of my oven instead of the lower trays.
Lessons learnt:
1) Get to know your oven. Apparently, at the same temperature setting, my big oven behaves differently from my small toaster oven.
2) To get a brownish tinge on the pineapple jam, you need to add cinnamon powder.
3) Baking Pineapple Tarts is a real tedious process. It took me more than half a day to make the pineapple jam, prepare the pastry and then bake 60-70 of these little golden gems. No wonder they are always sold at a premium.
Bite This!
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May 8th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
I’m not a good baker either. I’d rather go to the bakery and buy something pretty and then go home and cook an amazing meal to go along with it! But your tarts are beautiful!
May 8th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Hi Jaden, You’re so nice :) Sometimes I want to be one of those moms who bakes a drop-dead gorgeous and sumptuous cake/pastry for my kid(s) to bring to school. Let’s see how long that interest lasts. Right now, any baking is done at the spur of the moment due to hormone inbalance.
May 8th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Oooh, I love pineapple short cakes, you know those Taiwanese 风梨酥，so good…I always have to buy them from 99 Ranch. I wonder if I can use the same recipe and just enclose the filling and make them into short cakes? But where is your recipe?
May 8th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
suddenly i feel like calling my mum to bake them for me.
she made them differently this year, because the usual one like the ones u made, other pple said that is out of fashion. aiyo. like that also got..
so she those that the jam can be seen from two sides.
did u make your own pineapple jam?
May 9th, 2007 at 12:16 am
My mother-in-law’s pineapple tarts are excellent. Actually, I got the pics and pastry recipe on my pc already but have not got down to putting it up on Hochiak since CNY.
May 9th, 2007 at 7:49 am
Half a day. That’s a lot of work lady. I’m too lazy for that. :P BTW, you know the trend these days? Busy moms buy cookies from the store and then break the edges so they look more homemade. So don’t worry about perfection.
May 9th, 2007 at 9:14 am
RM:
I find pineapple shortcakes too big and “heavy” for me - can only eat one piece, else very jer-lat. The recipe is from wlteef dot blogspot dot com. Just do a search for “pineapple tarts”.
KM:
Tarts also got fashion one ar… ?!? Yeah… I made the jam the old fashioned way. LOL!
PP:
Can you post ur recipe before the next CNY :p
Chopsticks:
I made these pineapple tarts on a Sunday. Had nothing better to do and was looking for a challenge. *LOL*
Nooooo….! you can’t break the edges of the pretty cookies from the stores cos you paid a price for them to look pretty!!!
May 9th, 2007 at 9:54 am
I tried making pineapple tarts three times! The jam is easy, but the crust is so hard. Taste wise is OK, but the shape always ends up lopsided. How did you make yours so even?
~Ray
May 9th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Baking won’t save my life, definitely… and may even shorten it :O ..anything with flour, kneading will just kill me.
I don’t think the pastry looks brown…see…even the “external vertical walls” of the tarts looks lightly golden.
Good job! What other kueh you making? ;p soon kueh, peng kueh, gou teng kueh ?
May 9th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Hakka House:
My crust wasn’t hard hard… but it wasn’t as crumbly as I would have liked. (I like the Pineapple Tarts from Smiling Orchid in SG) I used a tart mould and pressed the mould in the center to get the pattern.
Tiga!
Pls don’t die… I’ll give you some of my tarts :)
I have moulds for chwee kueh, ang koo kueh and peng kueh. Apparently they don’t use multi-purpose flour, so I need to compare the recipes to see how I can best optimize the use of a particular flour.
May 9th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
You shouldn’t point out your mistakes. I would have not noticed and they look good in your pictures.
May 9th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
I can’t do that!!! Baker’s honor :p
May 13th, 2007 at 12:04 am
Reminds me of my mom’s pineapple jam tarts. We used to sit up till late at night making jam tarts the week before Chinese New Year. Fond memories.
May 13th, 2007 at 9:22 am
yes. unbelievable right?
That’s why you see there are so many kinds of patterns of the pineapple tarts during CNY.
I was laughing when my mum told me that too. I asked how come you don’t make your usual shape. She said, pple who ask her to make says want that ‘in’ pattern. *faints*
May 14th, 2007 at 3:01 am
They look wonderful. So keep on learning, and keep on sharing.
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Aiyo, I just read Pablo’s pine apple tarts and now I really really really have to make this…but no mould…how? Sigh.
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Ask family in Penang to mail one to you… or you can make the round or pillow shaped ones that Keropok Man says are more “in fashion” :)
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Dear Jaden
I spent my last 18 years in Vietnam doing engines business.I have a strong passion for tarts.I have a project to help Vietnamese orphanges ,especially teenages both sexes to learn how to make pineapple tarts.portugese egg tarts so they can earn a living.I plan to open a orphange to cater for the street children after chinese new year.
I wonder if you have a experienced person who can teach these children.Our company will pay for airticket to HCM city,Hotel accomodation,and your consultant fees.
I have many baking equipments in VN mostly for commercial baking.
Please consider and reply to my request for your help
Thank you
siotat ming
director
March 11th, 2008 at 6:56 am
Try to have every picture’s recipe out so that people can learn how to cook the recipe. And please try to make some easy desserts. Not with things that you really have to buy outside, but just home made. Easy Recipes.