Melts-In-Your-Mouth Pineapple Tarts

Following up on the previous post on Pineapple Paste/Jam, I'm sharing the 2nd part to my MiL's recipe for Pineapple Tarts. Looking around the market, these little CNY gems are available in various forms such as the "enclosed" pillows, the "open-faced" tarts, the square Taiwanese 凤梨酥 and more recently, the Indonesian "Kue Nastar". But honestly, I only categorize them into 2 kinds -- the slightly harder, sweet pastry crust that's usually used for "open-faced" tarts and the crumbly, soft, buttery dough that makes you go "mmm... mmm.." *smiles* when you pop one into your mouth. They've both got their attractive points but it's the latter which we absolutely love. And it seems like we're not the only ones who do!

Before I share the recipe, a little introduction on the tarts itself. There might be several reasons why Pineapple Tarts are popular during CNY, I think the most compelling reason is that the Chinese dialect name for pineapple, "Ong Lai", has a good symbolical meaning for the festival.

"Ong Lai" (旺来) which literally means "good fortune comes", has a good ring to its name and is what the Chinese hopes to bring forth in the coming year. Perhaps another reason is that they kinda resembles gold ingots/bars after baking. Who doesn't like gold and money right? Bwahaha!

 Pineapple Tarts - Dough (60-80 pieces)
(recipe from my MiL's big book of handwritten recipes)

  400g     Plain Flour, sifted

    25g     Castor Sugar (adjust according to preference)

  125g     Butter, unsalted, COLD, diced

      1       Egg, COLD

 1/4tsp    Salt
 1/4tsp    Vanilla Powder

Optional
*substitute 40-50g of flour for milk powder*

1. Using a paddle attachement, beat Butter, Sugar, Salt and Vanilla Powder until colour turns pale and mixture is fluffly.

2. Add the COLD egg, mix till well-combined.

3. Mix in flour using the dough-hook attachment. Stop immediately when the dough just comes together.

4. Cling wrap & refrigerate if not using immediately. Dough will store up to 1 week in refrigeration, and up to 1 month if frozen.

Assembly
Preheat oven to 130º C

5. Weigh out the dough and the pineapple paste before wrapping them together. It's not necessary to wrap them as I did. Go ahead, play with different designs. Make them into ingots, apples, pineapples, piggies, roses, etc. and what have you not, let your imaginative juices run!

6. Once the shaping is done, egg wash the tarts twice.

7. Bake for 30mins or when surface is light golden brown. Keep an eye on them as it may take significantly less time if your tarts are small.

Like I've mentioned, there are many people who loves these "melts in your mouth" tarts and there are people on the look out for the BEST recipe. I can't guarantee this is the best recipe (since taste is so subjective), but it is one of the better ones I've tried. And I promise it will do more than melting in your mouth, it will simply disintegrates into pure blissfulness. 

OK, I exaggerated. But you know what I mean. Gosh, I love the big book of handwritten recipes. 

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