Pineapple Tarts

Adapted from Rasa Malaysia.

This year I celebrated Chinese New Year solo. No family gatherings, “ang baos” (red envelopes that contain cash), feasts or firecrackers due to covid. One of the Chinese New Year snacks that I missed the most are pineapple tarts. These pineapple tarts are eaten in Malaysia and Singapore, and there are similar varieties in Southeast Asia such as the pineapple cakes in Taiwan.  

So, for my solo Chinese New Year baking project I made Bee’s pineapple tarts recipe from her blog “Rasa Malaysia”. It is one of my favorite blogs to make Malaysian recipes when I become a little homesick for Malaysian comfort food. 

You can follow Bee’s pineapple tarts recipe here.

I skipped the lemon juice because I prefer it less tart and halved the amount of sugar in the pineapple paste filling. I omitted the cloves as well. To make it healthier, I used avocado oil in the egg wash and substituted half the flour with Kodiak cake flour. 

I substituted half the flour with Kodiak cake flour because I ran out of plain flour. It was a recipe oopsie; I didn’t check my ingredients until I measured the flour. It just so happens that I had a box of Kodiak cakes flour mix next to my now empty flour container. With a big leap of faith, I added the Kodiak cakes flour in. 

Oh my, I was so afraid of how the pineapple tarts were going to turn out. 

The results? Deliciously “buttery, crumbly and melt-in-your-mouth” pineapple tarts as as Bee says, with a nice hint of sweetness. It tasted as close as a pineapple tart should be! A very pleasant surprise on my part. 

The most laborious thing I did was to condense 2 whole fresh pineapples into pineapple paste. The water took a few hours or more to evaporate. Do NOT add water when you blend the fresh pineapple chunks! This mistake took me half the day to evaporate the pineapple puree into a paste. To roll out the dough into 100 pieces and to assemble the pineapple tarts on my own also took me half the day, so I watched Avatar while I made them to pass the time. Better yet, make the pineapple tarts together with other people in your household 🙂 

Also, follow Bee’s instructions on the criss-cross patterns. I used a fork and squished my pineapple tarts a little harder than I should.

Enjoy!