Chinese New Year Cookies Galore

Hello! It's been some time since I've updated this blog. I've been away to my Hubby's hometown to celebrate the Chinese New Year festival with my in laws. It was good catching up with family members, old and new. Now that the celebrations are over and I'm back to my usual routine ....and also couple pounds heavier, I'm happy to have finally found some time to blog again. 

 

Here are some pics of the Chinese New Year cookies I've made.

  

I was going to pass making pineapple tarts this year but a trip to the market changed my mind. Pineapples were just so abundant and very fresh. Besides, Chinese New Year just wouldn't feel complete without some homemade pineapple tarts. I tried out a new pineapple tart pastry recipe from an old magazine and I'm happy to say I found THE one! For now that is. Until I find a better one, this recipe is what I'll be sticking to.  I like how the texture of the pastry is very short, buttery and milky tasting. It didn't leave that awful floury aftertaste like other recipes I've tried.  I suspect cornflour might be the culprit. This because all the recipes which had the floury taste had cornflour. Just my thought. What do you think?


Pineapple Tarts

Pastry:
180g unsalted butter, softened
70g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla
300g all purpose flour
50g milk powder
1 tsp salt
1 egg
1 egg, beaten for egg wash

Pineapple Jam Filling:
Recipe here


Method:
1) Beat butter, sugar, salt and vanilla extract until fluffy and light. Sist the flour and milk powder together, and stir into the creamed butter. Add in beaten egg, mix until dough comes together. Cover with cling wrap and chill in the fridge for 2 hours until the dough is firm.
2) Preheat oven 170C. Divide into balls and wrap in the pineapple filling. Roll into balls and insert a clove on top each balls. Brush with beaten egg.
3) Bake 15 minutes or until pastry is golden brown. Cool completely and store in airtight container.

Note: I was too lazy to  make balls and made rolls instead. I made a couple pieces of balls and they were really good, better than the rolled ones I must say.  I like how the pastry is nice and thin and evenly distributed, enrobing the pineapple filling. Make the balls if you're not lazy. It's worth the effort.

Kuih Makmur/Momo

Utterly rich and artery busting, not for the health conscious! Hence, this is only a once-a-year affair. My Daughter G absolutely loves these balls.

Crispy crunchy Walnut Cookies

Recipe here.

Added chopped walnuts instead of almond.

Self imposed challenge - Pineapple Tarts!

This post was originally planned to be published during the Chinese New Year season. Ah well, better late than never. Haha!

Here's my crazy self- imposed challenge in making pineapple tarts from scratch. All in all I've made 3 batches of pineapple jam and tried 4 pastry recipes for the tarts! Talk about madness!

Cooking my first ever batch of pineapple jam, it wasn't as hard as I imagined it to be and I enjoyed inhaling the heady aroma of spices (cloves & cinnamon) and sweet pineapple lingering throughout the house. I've got to say, the hardest part in making homemade pineapple jam was peeling the thick skin and digging out the eyes from the pineapples, more laborious than grating and cooking itself! 

I'm very pleased with the final outcome of my pineapple jam. Not too bad for a first timer eh? Dry and sticky enough for rolling into balls and fibrous enough like how traditional pineapple jams should be.  It was also not too sweet with some pineapple tang just the way I like it. This pineapple jam recipe adapted from 'Food-4-Tots' is a keeper! 

Pineapple Jam

Ingredients:

2 half-ripe pineapples, grated
200g granulated sugar (adjust according to your preference)
4 cloves
1 cinnamon stick (5 cm long)
1 tbsp lemon juice

Method:

1. Skin pineapples and remove the “eyes”. Cut each pineapple into quarters lengthwise.
2. Grate the pineapples until the core (the tough centre). Discard the core.
3. Cook the grated pineapples, half portion only of the sugar, cloves, cinnamon sticks and lemon juice in a large heavy bottom pot under moderate heat until it begins to boil.
4. Reduce the heat to medium low and continue to cook, stirring occasionally.
5. When the mixture start to look almost dry, reduce the heat to low. Add the remaining sugar bit by bit until the desired sweetness is achieved. Keep stirring until the mixture is sticky and caramelized with a golden-hue. This will take about 1 hour or more (or less if you use a very wide pot).
6. Remove cloves and cinnamon stick. Set aside to cool. Store in an air-tight container.

Here's my stash of baking tools all ready for making the pineapple tart pastry. I couldn't decide which type of pineapple tarts to make - the open faced ones or the rolled ones or the enclosed covered ones. In the end, I made all 3 types! Haha!

The rolled type also known as Nastar. I used Agnes Chang's recipe. The pineapple rolls somehow deformed after baking (though they looked pretty fine because I took pictures of the better looking side!). Tastewise the pastry was very short and melt-in-the-mouth but was bland eventhough I used salted butter and it has a slight floury taste which bugged me. 

Agnes Chang's Pineapple Tart Pastry Recipe

(Taken from her book, "Baking Made Easy")

Ingredients:

250 g unsalted butter (i used salted butter)

50 g icing sugar

2 egg yolks

360 g plain flour

2 tbs custard powder

1/4 tsp salt (omitted this)

Method:

1. Preheat oven at 160°C. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
2. Cream butter and icing sugar until light.
3. Beat in egg yolks, one at a time.
4. Add in salt and beat until fluffy.
5. Fold in sifted ingredients in bathches and mix into a firm dough.
6. Leave aside for 30 minutes.
7. Put the dough into a pineapple roll pastry press/mould, and then press out into a strip of 5cm length.
8. Place pineapple filing at one end and roll up the pastry, as in a Swiss roll, enough to enclose the jam. Do not overlap the pastry. Cut off the excess pastry.
9. Put the rolls on the baking tray. Brush with egg wash.
10. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes and turn the baking tray 180 ° and continue to bake for 2 minutes or until golden brown.
11. Leave to cool before storing.

I made the enclosed type using this rich pastry recipe which calls for cream AND cream cheese from 'Table for 2 or More' here.   The inclusion of cream indeed gave a very fragrant dairy aroma and the cream cheese though not so prominent gave the pastry some edge which was really delicious and the pastry was very very tender. I couldn't stop myself from eating the remnants of raw dough stuck to my mixer paddle. It was so good. Handling the dough was a nightmare though. It was really really soft and took a lot of time, and if handled too much it oozes oil; this knocks off some brownie points for this recipe.  I've also added 1/4 teaspoon salt for more flavour. I'd suggest chilling the pastry dough in the fridge and only take out a portion at a time when shaping the tarts.

The open faced tarts. Recipe taken from 'Greg & Nee' here. This is the simplest pastry recipe amongst all. The result was very short & melt in the mouth fresh out of the oven but once cooled down and kept overnight it wasn't so.

These are made from using Amy Beh's recipe copied from 'My Culinary Journal' here. This recipe is meant for the rolled type (Nastar) but I wanted to experiment to see whether it can be used for open-faced tarts. The dough was very soft and it must be chilled to firm up before rolling between 2 sheets of clingfilm or wax paper. Quick hands were indeed required as the dough softens quickly once rolled out!