So I guess it’s become a yearly affair. It just doesn’t feel like Chinese New Year when you don’t stuff yourself with the never-ending stream of cookies. And there’s just one in particular that I absolutely can’t do without.. my pineapple tarts.

These are probably one of the most time-consuming cookies to make, yet quick to finish! I’m making my third batch today because the rest have been gobbled up almost as quickly as they were made. I absolutely loved the recipe I came up with last year, and wanted to use the same one, but with a little twist. Borrowing ideas from the modernization of Taiwanese Pineapple Cakes, it seemed like the salted egg filling was trending in popularity last year. So why not try out Salted Egg Pineapple Tarts? One of my coworker’s wife made this too and it was awesome!

Using last year’s recipe with a little tweaking:

Pineapple Tarts

by Sweet Samsations. Makes 40-50 pineapple tarts

Pineapple Filling

• 2 Pineapples
• 1  1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg

1. Firstly, grate your pineapple. You will notice that you get quite a bit of juice with the grated remains of your pineapple.
2. Cook the grated pineapple in its juice at approximately 120 degrees. Throw in all the other ingredients. The cooking will require a fair bit of patience as the entire process will take at least half an hour… maybe more. If you want to hasten this process you may strain the juice before cooking the pineapple. Naturally however, this would adversely affect the taste of your final product.
3. Once your pineapple has turned dark brown and almost all the juice has been cooked, turn the heat off and leave it to cool. Be careful not to overcook and burn your filling or you’ll have to repeat the entire process again!
4. When the filling has been completely cooled, roll them into little balls.

Salted Egg Filling

• 10 salted eggs

1. Boil your salted eggs until completely cooked.
2. Peel the egg and extract only the egg yolks

Dough

• 350g butter (chopped into small pieces) (if it’s summer – thaw from fridge for 10 minutes. if it’s winter season – keep at room temperature)
• 1 whole egg
• 1 yolk
• 3 tbsp icing sugar
• 3 tbsp milk powder (Make sure you don’t omit this!)
• 3 cups cake flour
• 1 cup self-raising flour (Different brands of flour may react differently. Do add more if you find your dough to still be too wet, and less if you find it too dry.)

1.  Cream the butter until it turns pale white.
2. Add the egg and yolk to the creamed batter and beat until they are mixed well. Add some flour if they curdle.
3. Add in icing sugar, milk powder and flour by beating at a low speed. You can set your Kitchen Aid to the lowest speed now.
4. Once the mixture has fully come together, remove the dough. Do not overwork your dough. If your dough is still very sticky and hard to handle, you will need to add more flour.

You can now start making your pineapple tarts!

Wrapping and Egg Wash

• 1 egg yolk

1. Wrap the salted egg filling into the pineapple filling and roll into a ball. Continue until all the pineapple fillings are rolled up. The tastiest salted egg fillings are the parts that are really crumbly!
2. Take a small amount of dough, flatten it out and enclose the pineapple-salted egg filling in the middle. Roll the ball between your palms until smooth. Any cracks in the dough will later result in cracks after they have been baked.
3. To give them a nice glossy finish, brush with egg yolk for your egg wash.
4. Bake at 170 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Your tarts will turn to a beautiful golden brown from the egg wash. You may also do a second brushing after 10 minutes if you want to make darken your egg wash. Keep a close watch and do not over-bake or your tarts will dry up and crack.
5. Leave the cookies to cool as it will be super duper crumbly at this moment!
6. Keep in a container after it has completely cooled. Tastes even better the next day! 🙂