PINEAPPLE TARTS (buttery melt in your mouth pastry)

 Recipe for Pastry
(Recipe adapted from here.Yields about 96 tarts)
- 400g plain flour*
- 50g corn flour
- 1/4 (heaped) tsp salt (I added another 1/8 tsp of salt)
- 280g cold, unsalted butter (do not allow it to soften) (I changed to 300g)
- 3 egg yolks, beaten
- 3 tbsp cold water (or iced water)
- 6 tbsp icing sugar**
- 1/2 tsp cognac or pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp of milk powder (I added this)
- For glaze, mix 1 egg yolk + 1 tbsp water (I mixed in some milk into the 1 tbsp of water)

1. Sift the flours, icing sugar and salt. Mix well to combine.

2. Using the pointed ends of a fork, rub the butter into the flour until it looks like fine bread crumbs. If necessary, use fingertips to continue rubbing lightly the bigger pieces into finer pieces. Basically, just scrape / flake the butter with your forks. You essentially want to coat the butter crumbs in flour. Using forks prevents the cold butter from melting since there is no contact with heat. If you want to rub the butter into the flour using your hands, make sure you use only your fingertips.

3. Beat together egg yolks, cold water and cognac (or vanilla extract). Add it into the butter-flour mixture. Using your finger tips, gently coax all the crumbs into one large dough ball. Do not knead. As long as all the crumbs come together, stop. Chill in the fridge for about 10mins, covered.

4. Roll out to desired thickness (mine was about 8mm thick). Cut out dough using cutter. Arrange neatly onto baking tray, with at least 1.5cm apart. Since this is a very buttery, oily pastry, it would be good to use a small portion at a time. Keep the rest covered in the fridge, otherwise it will ooze oil.

5. Once you have arranged the tart shells on your tray, glaze them (the entire surface, not just the rims).

6. Place the pre-rolled pineapple jam balls onto the centre of each tart shell.

7. Bake at 160°C for 20 minutes, turning the tray halfway through baking.


PINEAPPLE PASTE

Ingredients:
(Recipe adapted from here)

2 large Morris pineapples (about 1.6kg each fruit before peeling, after peeling it’s about 900gm each) (I used honey pineapples)
2 cups sugar (400gm) (I reduced sugar to 300g)
1 smallish cinnamon stick

Method:
 
1. Peel the pineapples. 

2. Cut pineapples into chunks. DO NOT DISCARD THE CORE. That part has the most of the precious fibre.

3. Put half the pineapple chunks into a blender, add 1/3 cup of water and blitz away. Pour 80% of the blended stuff into a pan or wok (please, no pot, you need a large evaporation surface)

4. With the remaining blended pineapple in the blender, repeat blending process with the rest of the pineapples, always leaving some blended stuff in the blender if you need to blend more chunks and you won't need more water. (I drained away some of the juice as the pineapple taste is too strong)

5. Cook pineapple paste with cinnamon stick on medium heat until it's very pasty, like thick oatmeal. I don't stir it all the time.

6. Add in sugar, it'll turn watery again. Turn to lower medium heat, and cook until it is very pasty. Stir once a while only, but keep an eye on it. 

7. Increase the heat to high. Don't stir and let the base take on some colour. It will caramelize the jam. Stir once a while to check on the colour. Stop when it almost reaches your prefered colour. Take note that some pans will continue to caramelize even when the heat is off.