Open Face Pineapple Tarts

Baked these pineapple tarts today. They are so pretty, totally Valentine! Heart shape tart with heart shape jam, aren't they adorable? Thank you so much again Edith!

I was a little puzzled at how the mould works. Laugh all you like, there's no instructions and the mould came in two parts. It took me a while before I figured it out. No, it doesn't work like the heavy copper mould that come in one piece. You're suppose to do two stamping on each mould to get imprints. But I quite like that the imprints are clear and holds its shape. I don't quite know though whether is it due to the recipe or due to the mould. Having said that, many has said that copper mould imprints are clearer and better than plastic ones.

I have a slight problem with rolling the dough into equal thickness. I kept rolling and chilling again non stop until I was satisfied. It did too up a fair bit of time. But once you get the hang of it, you're good to speed things up a little. Having said that again, 41°C today obviously didn't help!


I have no problem glazing, they were quite firm when chilled in fridge. Didn't have enough egg wash so I just glaze the sides. The centre is gonna be covered with pineapple jam anyway, I didn't bother glazing. The jam adhere well to the pastry, nothing came off.

And the heart shape jam. It's really not that hard you know. Roll the jam into ball, make a slit with a sharp knife all the way to the centre. Open it up like 'V' shape. Sharpen the bottom edge and blunt the top edges and done. It's easier when you have frozen jam. Just in case you are wondering, the frozen jam are very much pliable but it doesn't stick to your hands. Perfect to work with!

These moulds are so cute I don't think I'll just pull them out once a year. I think they make lovely butter cookies with a nutella filling or just any other jam! Back to pineapple tarts. I made it the rub-in method with the same recipe. I tweaked the pineapple jam recipe and cooking method a little using my Granny's Sis method. The sugar is caramelized before being added to the almost dried jam. It takes sugar to a level higher when you burn it.

Roll out the dough. Don't knead it, just exactly like doing pies and tarts pastry, kneading cause it to shrink. Here, kneading cause it to be crispy and crunchy, not too good and not yummy. Trace out the patterns using a mould. For each trace, dip the mould in a mound of plain flour piled nearby. Gives a neat cut and dough doesn't stick to it. Now am I Einstein or what???

Remove excess dough and repeat the rolling process again until you finish up the dough and are left with many cute little hearts all over *winky wink

Now, use the inner mould (the mould comes in 2 pieces, one fits into the other one with minimal tolerance/gap) and press it on the previously traced hearts. Again, dip the mould each and every time into a mound of flour to avoid sticking. Cannot stress enough, do it! I'm talking from experience!


Lovely! Now, glaze all of them with egg yolk wash. I diluted them with milk a little. Too brown makes it look a little fake. I want edible, pleasant-to-the-eyes tarts this time around for my guests.

Now, make that heart shape jam or 'V'-for-Valentine shape jam and smear it on the centre of the tart, pressing gently.


Just like the one shown above. Do it for all and don't be lazy, declare love to your partner/husband/wife/girlfriend/spouse/boyfriend/gap partner/lesbo/ parents/great-grandma etc. Aren't they just too cute to eat? Even before baking, they are this cute, can you imagine after baking when their cheeks are brushed with brown hue colour????

If you're not romantic like Aaron, simply just flatten your ball of jam and plop it over the centre of the tart. We like more jam, less pastry. That is a crazy ration from the picture so don't follow me!

Pop it into the oven to bake until done. And sniff the air *sniff *sniff. The aroma of butter and milk powder mingled together. Simply arousing! I love my house smelling of pineapple tarts!

I'm so tired now, I made 70 pieces of these for my family and Aaron's. I'll start on nastar next week. Right now, rest time, I'm shutting down.

Pineapple Tart Moulds

Hey everyone,

Bring it on!!! About two weeks ago, Edith left a comment on my Pineapple Tarts...two ways post. She was rather straight forward and I was a lil' startled in fact. Here's what she said:

Quinn, give me your address

I shoot her an email with my address only to find out later her intention was to send me nastar mould to ease my life. It came in last week. And it not only came with a nastar mould, it also came with this lovely heart shape open face tart mould in it!!! Edith, I cannot thank you enough for the moulds. Edith thought I have been nice and kind to her but the inner me thought Edith was the one being nice and kind to me. I totally don't deserve the moulds and no, I have not met Edith in real life before. Not even once!


It surprises me how sometimes blogging has built my network and brought nice people closer to me. I know good people when I see one. I can't wait for the bloggers meet up in KL. I can't wait to meet Zurin in real. Zu, I hope pomegranates are still available next week so I can get them for you as fresh as possible! I can't wait to meet Angie.

I have so much more to learn about baking. I have long way to go in cooking. I have more flavours to invent for cool concoctions. And I just cannot tell you all enough how little things like leaving me a comment and even just dropping by and bookmark my page sparked my life. You don't have to send me gift to make my day!


I have never thought I would be where I am today. All these started off as a past time and it shall continue to be. I am a professional engineer now, I have already graduated. I have no regrets and will not turn my head and look back at those times thinking I should have worked on a Pastry Chef Degree instead.

And to those of you who sent me hate mails and hate comments saying I'm not posting frequent enough, I am getting boring and my skills aren't right here and there, jeeeezzzz.....go get a life. I'm not here just to entertain you. I am a self-taught, never had the luxury to attend a single class like you. I don't mind if you tell me nicely. But if you do it like how you did on my Old-Fashioned Tiramisu or my French Toast, trust me you'll either get deleted or on days when I'm up for an argument, I'll approve you and shoot the hell out of you along with other people. I'm here to entertain myself and hope I might entertain you too. It's a symbiosis process, a two-way thing. Not like you, you parasite! Blog! blog! blog! Did you care about my life? Did you ask me how am I faring if I didn't tell you?

Let's not go there. Edith, thank you so much again. You have made me so happy today I couldn't sleep last night. That is true. I sure will have fun with the moulds you sent me.


Cheers,
Quinn

Mango Pudding...the cheat way

This was dessert last night. Me and mango pudding, Aaron and mango pudding, our love for mango pudding, indescribable is the word. I ran out of gelatine and I ran out of ice cream. All I have is a packet of 85g Mango Flavoured Aeroplane Jelly.

I don't eat stuffs like that. Apart from the fake mango essence taste and deep lemon colour, no part of it is truly mango. But it was 89cents. The cheapskate in me couldn't help but buy it and figure out what to do with it. I could just make the jelly and run a fork through them and serve them with ice cream or use them to top a velvety smooth cheesecake but I didn't.

A crazy idea sparked my mind. I could use this packet of mango jelly powder as gelatine instead! The mango jelly powder will be what forms my aspic. I gotta figure out the proportion myself though. I can almost say it's failproof and hey, mango size doesn't matter too! You'll either get a more wobbly consistency or firmer depending on the mango size you use but rest assured, it will definitely set.

And it set real quick, like after 2 hours. I didn't make too much, it's just me and Aaron anyway. And mangoes....good, sweet, creamy luscious mangoes are everywhere! Generally, I'll only buy R2E2 or Honey Gold Mangoes because they are as sweet as ever.... and they have less fibre too! Good or bad, you figure it out but I want my mango pudding silky smooth.

And because I didn't add any sugar to the pudding, I sugar-coated the lips of my glass just in case it's not sweet enough for us. And the strawberries, it's sour and tart. I quarter them and squeeze in some of the leftover Chocolate and Vanilla Bean Buttercream from my previous cupcakes. You of couse could use chantilly cream, this is just what I've used.

And the cubed mango cheeks taste so good with evaporated milk dribble over them. I'd be making them over and over again. The mango jelly powder by itself sucks but it taste real good after a couple of transformation. If you're looking for creamy mango pudding, this is it.

Mango Pudding
(makes 2 cups scant of pudding)

1 packet of Mango Flavoured Jelly Powder (Mine was an 85g pack)
1/2 cup hot water
1/4 cup cold water
1 mango, peeled and pureed, pass through a fine sieve to remove fibrous stuffs
1/2 cup evaporated milk (use creamy ones, don't use those light stuffs)

Place the jelly powder in a small pot. Pour in the hot water and whisk until combined. I generally can never get it to dissolve properly so I place them on the stove, heat them up a bit, use a water-soaked brush to paint the sides of the pot to remove any stuck jelly powder and stir non-stop with a whisk. Use low heat and don't heat it up too long. Whisk in the cold water to bring down the temperature a bit. Finally, whisk in the mango puree and evaporated milk. Whisk hard else it might set and curdle. But don't fret, cuz when mine curdled because I didn't whisk quick enough, I run a stick blender through the mixture and it became uniform again, easy peasy and failproof.

Pour it into serving glasses. Feel free to add a tablespoon of castor sugar in the mixture if you think your mango is not sweet enough. Chill for 2 hours and it'll firm up. Pop it in the freezer for 15mins and it's all icy cold and ready to serve.

P/S: I thought I was smart to use jelly powder to make pudding but a quick Google search and I realise I'm not the first one and definitely not the only one.... :( Whatever, I like my proportion so use mine with assurance from me!

Pei Lin, I've picked up your Happy 101 Award meant for me. If you're reading this, a million thanks to you again for thinking I'm worth it!

Pei Lin, I think I'll make this a leaf node in the tags spanning across the blogosphere. In a quick 5 mins Google, it looks like most bloggers that I have known and those that I have not already known have already been tagged, and I'm not going to spread the contagion outside the organization further :)

Soft Boiled Eggs with Soldiers

I know what you're thinking. I'm probably running out of things to blog about. Nope, I really wholeheartedly want to share this simple breakfast fare of mine with you. This is what we ate most of the times and Aaron loves it with a dollop of Bovril. I hate Bovril!

Simply just cover as much free-range eggs (doesn't have to be free range, fresh eggs will do) needed with cold water. Bring to boil and once boiling, time it and let it boil for approximately 2 minutes or so. Fish it out and soak it in cold water. Get along with the soldiers. Butter bread and slice them into long fingers. Pop it in the griller until it crisp up.

Crack up the top part of the egg and place it in a egg cup. Throw in a dash of pepper salt and a small dollop of butter or Bovril. Stir around to mix with the soldier and serve.

Very yummy breakfast!

Best Ever Banana Cake with Best Ever Peanut Butter & Chocolate Frosting

I really do love baking whole cakes. There are not many chance where I get to bake. Bake as in a proper layered cake with frosting and all. We do have lotsa gathering and potlucks but there are a handful of people who also loves to bake among us so I don't wanna be the only one always shining through and showered with praises.

This time around, Eghosa, one of our classmate turned to the big 3-0! It's just me, Aaron and him celebrating him, a rather small event since we all graduated and many of us left and go back to our own country for good. He's leaving soon too so I guess this serve as a birthday cake and a farewell cake too!

We decided for lunch in Aaron's workplace again, simply knowing we'll get discounts. I quite like Kwik Stix really, they make pretty good steamed chicken rice, makes me miss Malaysia. Other than that, nothing else is authentic. But they taste good.

It was so weird because none of us remembered Eghosa's birthday. He texted me and the conversation went as follow:

Eghosa: Hi, what you doing?
Quinn: Hi Eggie! Nothing much, just catching up with stuffs. You? Glued to the TV again?
Eghosa: Yeah, watching TV now and it's my birthday today.
Quinn: Oh....okay....Happy Birthday Eghosa! Many happy returns of the day!

It was weird, simply just weird. I felt bad when I don't remember people's birthday. Eghosa, I've been very nice to you really. I lied to you when I said I needed to go have dinner when it was almost 8pm. I went to the kitchen, opened up the fridge. Great, no butter, all gone for pineapple tarts. I simply can't use lard for banana cake and there's not much lard anyway. I don't wanna use shortening for a whole cake. Think Quinn.....Think!!!!!

I glanced across the worktable and saw a bunch of black, almost rotten bananas. It's AUD2.50 for a bag of a kilo or more. The cheapskate in us bought it when it was on special sale. Those of you who live in Aussie will know how expensive bananas get sometimes, drives me crazy because we're both banana lover. Me not so, but Aaron, my cute little monkey yes. Banana freak!

I decided on banana cake to be the base. I haven't got much in mind yet. I guess I'd use oil. Canola...mmmmm....no taste and odourless. When you ran our of butter, really, try using oil. It gives the cake a moist and fluffy texture that you can't get from butter when you chill the cake. Butter give fragrance but it always yield a more firm and dense cake for me. I'd like something moist for the day! Not like I have a choice since I have no butter!

I bake 2 rounds, simply because the oven is too small to even fit 2 seven inches round cake and I've only got one 7'' pan anyway. Jeez.....indeed the best banana cake ever. So good it fit mother of all monkeys! I do like steamed banana muffins but baked banana cake....the fragrance, my whole kitchen smelled of cekodok pisang for the night. I kept sniffing the cake like for minutes!

When one came out, I quickly put together the other one, spray the base with more canola oil and pour in the batter again. It was in the oven baking a second layer in less than 10 minutes. That's how easy the recipe was! It was 11pm by the time I was done. A thorough shower and Monkey is back from work. Had dinner, supper, whatever you call it when you eat at that kind of hour. Wrap up the 2 layers of cooled cake in plastic wrap and chuck them into the fridge for the night. Sleep! Very unhealthy, I know.

This morning, I got up at 7:30am! I've never gotten up this early before to frost a cake. I was getting a little panic because I didn't know what frosting to use. I open up shelves and food cabinet and decided on peanut butter frosting. And it's gotta be chocolate and peanut butter one because they are a perfect pair and because a chocolate colour frosting would contrast my yellow banana cake damn well.

I didn't wanna pull out any electric mixer and start whisking away like mad and wake my neighbour's dog up. I throw together chocolate, leftover chocolate chips here and there, peanut butter and icing sugar and bain-marie that. I've never tried anything like that before but I couldn't care less. Birthday lunch is set at 12noon. I better get it done earlier than never.

The frosting turned out to be really really good! I like it that it's not sweet. Monkey's favourite smooth Kraft's peanut butter has salt in it, I guess it takes away the sweetness. And I reduce the sugar in the cake a fair bit. No one wants to eat an overly sweet cake really. I don't definitely!

I fix the frosting, grab an offset spatula, took out the cakes and a serving plate. I was sleepy but I was in a mood to make use of my new camera. Sunlight and shadow at 7:30am, you really don't wanna miss it.

Smear some of the frosting on the middle of the serving plate. Place one layer of cake flat side down on plate and press it gently. The smeared frosting act as a glue. Your cake won't budge an inch now and makes frosting a lot easier for you.

Dollop heaps of frosting over the cake and smooth it over. My frosting is as smooth as tofu, that is the cake crumbs. Doesn't matter, it's gonna be sandwiched with another layer of cake anyway. Smear more frosting towards the side of the cake and form sorta like a dam.

Now, place the other layer of cake over and press it with your palms, even pressure please. You'll see the extra chocolate frosting you smeared more on the sides oozing out. When glued together, grab that spatula and run it around the sides of the cake, especially in between the two layers of cake, making sure you patch up each and every corner, crevice, cleft, opening, crack, whatever you call it! Just make sure it's smooth and the cake look as if it's one piece!

Dollop all leftover frosting on top of the cake. Smooth out the top and let leftover frosting dribble to the sides. Roughly frost the sides now. Make sure you get the desired smoothness you want for the top of the cake first. Worry about the sides later. Anyone smarter than Einstein would have place pieces of plastic wrap or baking paper around the corner of the cakes to ensure a clean and tidy plate. I didn't.

That's the top of my cake and no, I'm not happy with it. But that's the best I could do, considering it's 8 in the morning and I skip the crumb coating stage. If you wanna be perfect, smear just enough frosting to cover the top and sides of the cake. Doesn't have to look good. Pop that in the freezer for 10mins, make yourself a cup of Chai and soft boiled eggs with soldiers. Remove the cake from freezer and continue frosting like mine. The crumbs would have all been glued to the cake by now. Easy peasy. But at 8 0' clock in the morning, I have no 10mins to spare. Neither was I hungry.

I didn't move, I just stand there and frost. The sun changes direction as it rise. Blame the sun for the bad photos, not me. For the effect above, grab a teaspoon and place the back of it on the side of the cake. Use an upwards stroke and drag the frosting vertically upwards. Repeat at every interval and you get that old-fashioned look.

I heard neighbour's house playing Starry Starry Night by Don McLean. Straight away reminds me of 'Starry Night' by Van Gogh. What???? You don't know who's Vincent Van Gogh and you've not heard of Starry Starry Night? Jeez....what kinda planet are you from? Here....take it. It's from Quinn. Say thank you. Can anyone tell me why artist only get famous when they die? Van Gogh didn't make it big time when he was alive. Da Vinci was famous for so many other things but painting wasn't the main reason he became famous. Neither did Picasso. Sad.... And I really like the picture above. It looks better than the first picture in this blog post...The chocolate frosting looses its glossiness once it's chilled in the fridge. I'll serve this unchilled next time and I'll frost 30mins before serving time.

Anyway, Van Gogh is the reason I swirl the top of the cake like that. And I swirl it with a clean index finger, which I found to be just of perfect diameter. Swirl like Van Gogh and clean up the sides of the plate. That's Eghosa's hand, couldn't wait to dig in!

An upclose of the sides of my cake and yes, we're done!

Sorry...but a hideous looking photo of my cake when sliced. I just wanna show you how even the cake layers are and how even the frosting is spreaded out, a neat even layer on the sides, top and centre.

Best Ever Banana Cake
(yield one 7-inch round cake)

3/4 cup self-rising flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup vanilla castor sugar (If you won't be frosting the cake, use 6 tbsp)
1/4 cup canola oil
1 large egg, beaten
1-2 bananas, mashed

Sift together the flour and baking soda, like 10cm off the bowl to aerate it. Add in the sugar and briefly whisk to combine. In a 1 cup capacity measuring cup, pour in the oil and egg. Top up with mashed bananas to come up to one cup full. Pour that into the flour mixture and whisk until combined. Pour into a well greased 7'' round baking tin (you can line them if you want but I have no problem releasing them from the pan) and bake it in a preheated oven of 160°C for 20 to 30 mins or until golden brown. Run a skewer through the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean, it's done.

Repeat the above recipe again to yield two layer. If you have only one pan, I'd recommend you don;t double the above recipe and leave the batter to stand while you're baking the first layer. The recipe contains baking soda and if you let it stand, you'll get banana hive cake instead. It's gonna be holey and won't look good.

Frosting

10 tbsp smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup icing sugar, sifted
100g dark chocolate
1 tbsp dark cocoa powder,sifted (use good quality one please)

Combine everything in a large bowl and place it over a double boiler. Whisk until well-combined and very smooth. Cool to room temperature and frost the cake.

Pineapple Tarts...Two Ways

This is a pain in the arse....I made 16 golden gems. It took me an hour or more, just rolling and shaping, 20mins to bake and 1 day to disappear.

My advice is do not ever attempt to make Nastar or pineapple roll if you don't have the right mould. I don't know what came to me. I thought I have a Nastar mould. I turned the kitchen upside down, searched high and low, icing tips flying everywhere and I cannot find the right mould.


Not only that, after baking, I couldn't find the wire rack, just so damn it!!! I recalled I've seen a chopsticks wire rack at HHB thus I quickly gather all the chopsticks I could find in the house. How was I glad the bottom of the tart did not turn soggy!


I improvise accordingly, Aaron took a step-by-step shot. But really, spend that 5 bucks and get a proper mould rather than being like me!

Pineapple tart is really not that hard. You just gotta get organized, have ready everything needed from before baking till after baking else you'll go head-wired like me! I've enclose here a very detail steps and recipe so bake some for Chinese New Year!

Generally, there are three types of pineapple tarts, the Nyonya Style which is what they call the open face tart. I didn't make this because I don't have the right mould and it is impossible to cheat with any other cookie cutter, just my opinion. Also because tarts made this way tend to have dry jam unless you spread it on halfway through baking. I like my pineapple jam moist, thank you. No store-bought jams anymore please...

Another type is the pineapple nastar or pineapple rolls, probably the most tedious among all but most good looking one too I would say!

One last one is the all wrapped in pineapple tart. Depending on how you stick in your cloves, some would call it tangerine style tart (below) and some would call it apple style tart. (above) This is good, moist filling and looks good too! Cloves don't come cheap in Australia, I'm stingy!

There is another type of tart, very much like tangerine style pineapple tart, where all filling is totally enclosed in pastry case. It is square and they usually call it Taiwanese Style Pineapple Tart. It has no cloves and is not a common sight during Chinese New Year and you need special square mould for that too. Let's get back to what I've done and more about CNY from now on!

Also, you can make the pastry two ways. You can either pulse them in food processor like how I make all my tarts or you can use the creaming method, typical of how you mix butter and sugar till light and fluffy then add in egg yolk and vanilla if desired and beat until combined again. Finally fold in the flour. Creaming method produces a melt-in-mouth tart whereas food processor or the rubbing in of butter method produces a crumbly tart. The rubbing-in method will also yield tart that holds its shape better. I sorta combined both ways and got a crumbly but also melt-in-the-mouth tarts. So, try mine!

Here comes the recipe and detail steps, you're so welcome!

Pineapple Tarts
(makes 16 tangerine style perfectly or 20++ Nastars but you'll need more jam accordingly)

One portion of Pineapple Jam, rolled into 16 balls

Pastry:

95g plain flour
2 tbsp milk powder
2 tsp custard powder
2 tbsp + 1 tsp cornflour
Pinch of salt
2 tbsp castor vanilla sugar
85g butter (I substituted 3 tbsp of this with pork lard, ultimate food orgasm!!!)
1 egg yolk, mixed with 1 tbsp of water

Glaze: 1 egg yolk + 1 tsp water

Combine together the first 6 ingredients in a food processor. Pulse a while until combined and fine. Chop in the butter and lard, if using. Lard addition yield a more crumbly tart. Pulse until butter is the size of green peas, if not smaller. Pour the butter-flour mixture onto a clean work surface. Make a well on the mound of flour and pour in the egg yolk-water mixture. Apply the Frissage Method, like once or twice. When it starts coming together, gather together everything and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for an hour. After an hour, remove it from the fridge. Knead it a little to bring it back to room temperature.

If you are making the tangerine style tart, use a 1/2-tablespoon capacity measuring spoon and form 1/2 tablespoon ball of dough. Roll into round and flatten it. Wrap in the pineapple jam ball and seal well. Place on a lined and greased tray. Glaze with egg yolk wash and stick in a clove. Stick it in with stalk protuding out if you want an apple-like tart and vice versa for tangerine-like tart. Just make sure you remove the little ball (formed due to unopened sepals, just fyi!) at the centre just to be perfect!

If you are making the nastar or pineapple rolls, do as below if you have no nastar mould:

Pipe one long strand of pastry onto a baking paper, taped to the table on both sides.

Pipe another two strands of pastry like above. That strand makes 3 nastars for me.

Take one pineapple jam filling and roll it between your palm until slightly oblongi-sh. Place it as above.

Use a spatula and gently lift up the pastry strands together like above.

Use your thumb and index finger to hold the filling and roll it upfront. The pastry will follow it and roll up the filling nicely, enclosing it snuggly.

Use the spatula and cut off the remaining pastry and repeat again until done. Pipe more accordingly.

Chill them for 10mins and glaze. They firm up a little and holds it shape better when you glaze and even after baking. When commercialized, they have a sorta spray glaze, I've seen how they do it. They place the glazing liquid in a sprayer mist and spray it on the tarts. They have large tray of tarts, and they place the tarts all close together.

Finally, bake them in a preheated oven of 170°C for 20 mins or until lightly brown. Cool them on the baking tray for 5 minutes and working quickly and gently, remove them to cool on a wire rack so they don't get soggy bottoms. Grab the nastars by the jam rather than the pastry because they're crumbly when warm. You might also want to make sure they are loosen up from the baking paper using a spatula.

Very addictive. All the best in loosing weight for those going on diet!

Credits:

Pinkcocoa (Recipe Source)
Malaysia Best (Step-by-step Guide)
Little Teochew (the reason I made some because I couldn't resist her temptating photos)
Pineapple-Tarts (lots of good tip and idea)