Pineapple Tarts

It's already the Ides of March! Where is the year going.

I love pineapple tarts (the "golden pillow" variety), but they are both seasonal and really quite expensive. Making my own sounded like a great idea!

Pineapple Tarts (makes 30-45)
Adapted from this recipe. 

Filling
565 g (340 g drained) can of pineapple chunks
100 g granulated sugar, plus extra
1 1/2 – 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 – 1 1/2 tsp tapioca starch

Tart pastry
300 g all-purpose flour
75 g cake flour
50 g icing sugar
2 tbsp corn or tapioca starch
1/4 tsp table salt
220 g Golden Churn unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 egg yolks, divided
1 tsp water

To prepare the filling, drain pineapple. Place in a blender and pulse briefly until crushed. In a non-reactive saucepan, combine pineapple and sugar. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until most of the liquid has evaporated. Stir in lemon juice, and extra sugar to taste. Add tapioca starch to thicken to desired consistency. Cool to room temperature before use.

To prepare pastry, whisk flours, icing sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Set aside. Cream butter using an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Fold in vanilla essence using a spatula. Add two egg yolks and beat until combined.

Using a whisk, slowly beat in half of the flour mixture. Add remaining flour and beat with a wooden spoon until just combined. Scrape pastry dough together and knead 1–2 times to form a ball.

Divide dough into 30–35 balls (about 20 g each). To make each tart, press down on each dough ball to form an indentation. Place 1/2 – 1 tsp pineapple filling into the indentation and pinch shut. Roll lightly between the palms to form a pillow shape. If desired, decorate with a fork.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Whisk remaining egg yolk with water. Place pineapple tarts on a parchment-lined baking tray and brush with egg yolk glaze. Bake 15–20 minutes until golden-brown.

Notes

Theoretically, cornstarch can be used to thicken the filling, but I don't like to use it in fruit fillings because it tends to dull the flavour. Besides tapioca starch, potato starch also works well.

Golden Churn butter is magic and doesn't turn into oil at Singapore room temperatures. I strongly recommend this brand for this particular recipe.

The cake flour helps with the "shortness" of the dough, it can be replaced with plain flour mixed with 1–2 tbsp rice flour. Gluten-free flour would probably work, too.

I haven't tried this yet, but I think a touch of almond essence would help with the flavour. Perhaps 1/2 tsp vanilla essence, and 1/2 tsp almond essence. Other things I'd like to try: different glazes (the egg yolk glaze is very eggy), using silken tofu instead of egg yolks in the pastry, adding cheese powder to the pastry.