Chinese New Year Chronicles: Part II

If there's Part I, there ought to be at least a Part II right?

So, here it is, pineapple tarts, nastar style. I was really excited to try out this new style of pineapple tarts. And I must say, I'm pretty happy with the way things turned out, especially since it is my maiden attempt.

For some reason, it seems like many people are attempting this style of pineapple tarts this new year which really made me geared up to try these little rolls.

Some time last year, I came across a biscuit pump and I just had to buy it. I told myself I would I want to get the biscuit pump, so when the time comes, I'd have no excuse not to try. Right? Wrong. I nearly gave up the chance of opening my brand new biscuit pump especially since after a full week of pineapple tart making. 

What made me press on (pun intended) was the remaining balls of pineapple filling and that I was tasked to bake at least one bottle of tarts for ourselves. 

 

 I was reluctant to search for a new recipe and so I decided to modify my previous pastry recipe to hopefully, make it work for the nastar type. Since I knew that the pastry had to be soft enough to be piped out, yet firm enough to retain its shape and pattern during the baking process, I simply added more yolk to the pastry dough.

Although the tarts turned out acceptable, it wasn't as good as I was expecting it to be. The pastry had a little melt down and the patterns were not as visible =( However, my mum's friend loved it and said it was simply "melt-in-the-mouth".

With the amout of hard work involved, it is no wonder why these type of pienapple tarts are a tad pricey. The laborious action of having to pipe the dough, roll it up and cutting off the excess is jus simply time-consuming. My mum took a liking to how pretty each one looked when lined up on the baking tray and asked why didn't I sell these instead. Well, I guess it is pretty obvious, because of the amount of time spend laboring over each and every single tart, this is an absolute no-no for large scale productions, in a home kitchen.

Without further ado, here goes the recipe! With step-by-step pictures which I hope will inspire some to try this out. Next CNY perhaps? =p

Pineapple Tarts - Nastar Style

makes ~150 or more

Ingredients:

A:

360g Unsalted Butter, cold and cubed

B:

480g Plain Flour, sifted

100g Icing Sugar, sifted

2 Tbsp Custard Powder

4 Tbsp Milk Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

*mix well*

C:

3 Egg yolks

1-1/2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract

*mix well*

Method:

1. Rub A into B until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.

2. Add in C until a soft dough forms.

3. Using a biscuit pump, attached with the desired pattern, fill the pump with pastry dough. do not attempt to fill it to the brim as you will encounter difficulty pumping the dough out. Fill it just 1/2 full.

4. Pipe out a strip of dough approximately 10-12cm long. It's better to have it longer than shorter, as the excess could always be cut away.

5. Roll 1 level teaspoon of pineapple filling into a small sausage. approximately the width of the piped dough. And place the filling on one end of the piped dough.

6. Starting from the end with the filling, roll up the dough swiss roll style.

7. Cut away the excess dough with a knife. The excess dough can be gathered and used again and again until all the dough has been used up.

8. Place it on a baking tray. Pre-heat the oven to 190C and bake for 12 min.

9. Remove the baked tarts from the oven and allow it to cool on the baking tray. Store it only when they have cooled completely.

Enjoy!!