Pineapple Tarts

Have you ever dreamt a dream feeling emotions so strong it jolts you awake? This morning I dreamt of my mom, and I woke up with a terrible sad feeling. I believe the whole Chinese New Year festive season, and being away from home and unable to celebrate the festivities with my family for many years now had something to do with it.

My mom was no cook when we were young. She had a career, and our Auntie helped out with the cooking and other domestic chores so she did not have to do too much cooking at home. That said, she did have some awesome dishes she made sometimes.

Now that she is retired and has more time to cook, she has been telling me over the phone what kind of restaurant type dishes she has been learning, or has cooked. It always makes me want to go home and try them out. And it always makes me want to ask her why didn't she cook those restaurant dishes more often for me when I was younger. Of course, I understand she has to work to give us a good life and I would not make her change her choice. I just wished we could have eaten more 'naughty' dishes instead of healthy (read: bland) home food!

During Chinese New Year, my mom would always buy cookies for when we have guests who visit. She had no time to make these cookies herself. She would always buy my favourite - arrowroot chips. I love them and would eat them by the tubful.

Another staple is the pineapple tart, bought not because we liked to eat them, but because of it's good meaning. In the Hokkien dialect, pineapple is called 'ong lai'. 'Ong' sounds like wealth, and 'lai' sounds like come. So if you have pineapple in your house during Chinese New Year, the wealth will always flow in!!

So this year, I knew I had to make 'ong lai' tart for CNY to reminisce about home. I found that this dough is very soft and melts in the mouth. Those who have tasted them seem to like them very much too.

255g all purpose flour
1 egg yolk
50g condensed milk
175g butter (room temperature)

Whip butter with condensed milk till light and creamy, then add in egg yolk to whip till combined. Add flour and mix till combined. The dough should be soft but not sticky.

I rolled my dough into lots of 10g each, flattened them on the palm of my hand then filled them with the pineapple filling (8g) before bringing the edges to close and rolled them back into a ball.

Brush with the leftover egg white.

Bake the cookies at 165c for 25 mins or until golden brown.

I made my own pineapple filling using tinned pineapple (I wanted to buy fresh pineapples, which I think would have been better, but I really didn't have the time!!). By blending drained pineapple pieces from 3x400g cans, and cooking them over the stove with sugar to taste, the end result was around 450g of pineapple jam

This recipe will produce around 50 pieces of crumbly, melt in your melt pineapple cookies.