January 14, 2012
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Pineapple Tarts
Before After
Well, these little nuggets of golden delicious ... Ok they don't look like the most appetising batch of of pineapple tarts .... And well, they aren't. The filling taste good though with a nice balance of sweetness and tartness. The tart's "shell" on the other hand was bland plain and simple. The melt in your mouth texture (which is superb in my mind) did nothing to save it from the world of Blandness. Ugh! This is why I had hesitated in baking up a batch of these little Chinese New Year goodies. Almost four hours slaving in the kitchen only yielded 36 mini bite-sized pineapple tarts (it was a small pineapple so I got a small amount of pineapple filling). 36 measly, bland-tasting... Ugh! Oh well, at least I tried.
The whole process that goes into baking the pineapple tarts is tedious one. First, you take a freshly cut and cleaned whole pineapple, with the core removed, and use some brute force to grate the pulp into a fibrous mush. Next, mash the mush in a strainer to drain almost all of the juice out of it. Once that is done, stir fry (without oil or butter) the pulp in a pan until the pulp is dry (oh don't forget to add rock sugar to taste in the process of frying the pulp). This process took me about 1 1/2 hours and it was only a SMALL pineapple(!!). Now that you have prepared the filling for the tart you move on to the "shell". Yes, i call it a "shell" because I prefer to wrap my dough around filling instead of having the filling sit on top of it. The pineapple filling tends to retain more moisture this way. I've been told that once you have the dough ready it's best to refrigerate it for about 30 minutes before using it. While the dough is cooling, I shaped the pineapple filling into mini columns. As you can tell by now, it takes quite a bit of effort to make my mom's version of the pineapple tarts.
Baking Goodies, 1.
My baking skills, 0.
All I can do now is wait for Hubbie to get back from work and be my guinea pig. Wifey not happy with her efforts.
Update : My bro and sis read my blog and told my mom. Apparently, when my mom said "a pinch of salt" she meant to say "1/2 teaspoon of salt". *groans* No wonder my "shell" is bland. *groan* Mooooommmmmm..........
