Every year as we celebrate Chinese New Year certain things remain synonyms to the festival; without them, the festive feeling seems incomplete. Yee sang (prosperity salad), mandarin oranges, nian gao (steamed glutinous rice cake), bak kwa (roasted meat slices), and the many CNY snacks.
Chinese New Year is a time to indulge. My favourite CNY goodies is the pineapple tarts. Pineapple is seen as a symbol of wealth and prosperity by the Chinese community hence these savoury and delicious tarts are a must-have during Chinese New Year.
Pineapple tarts symbolise prosperity as pineapple is called ‘Ong Lai’ in Hokkien or ‘Wong Lai’ in Cantonese which directly translates to ‘prosperity coming in’.
Pineapple tarts are also popular as an auspicious gift for family and friends. Uniquely shaped pineapple tarts are very much sought after especially if they are shaped after the upcoming animal zodiac.
This year we will be welcoming the Year of the Tiger so I’m going to share how to make these adorable tiger-shaped pineapple tarts so you can make them yourself to be gifted to your family and friends!
Pineapple Tarts Recipe
Equipment
- Oven
- Blender
Ingredients
Homemade Pineapple Jam
- 1 whole pineapple
- 1 stick cinnamon
- 1 cup sugar
Dough
- 100 g cold butter
- 140 g plain flour
- 2 tsp cornstarch
- 1 tbsp icing sugar
- 1 tbsp egg
Instructions
Homemade Pineapple Jam
- Remove the skin of a whole pineapple.
- Cut pineapple into small pieces.
- Do not discard the core as this part has the most fibre.
- Blend the pineapple in a blender without water.
- Measure how much is yielded by cup.
- One regular sized pineapple usually yield 4 cups.
- Add cinnamon stick and cook on low heat.
- Let it simmer only stirring occasionally.
- Once liquid has reduced, add a cup of sugar.
- Keep cooking until liquid is further reduced.
- Cook until the jam has thicken. The jam will thicken further upon cooling.
- Once the jam has cooled down, measure them into 10g and roll to make small balls.
Dough
- Sift plain flour, cornflour and icing sugar.
- Add cold butter.
- Rub butter into flour.
- Whisk an egg. Add a tablespoon of egg into the flour.
- Knead into a soft dough. Divide into three unequal portions.
- Blend toasted sesame seed. Add sesame seed powder into the smallest dough portion to make black dough for the eyes and nose.
- Add cocoa powder to the middle portion dough to make brown dough for the stripes.
- Measure 10g of dough. Flatten it, place a ball of pineapple jam in the middle and cover with dough.
- Add the ears.
- Roll brown dough into strips for the stripes.
- Complete the tiger with eyes and nose.
- Bake in a preheated oven at 160C for 25 minutes.
- Cool completely before storing in airtight containers.
Now that you have your adorable tiger-shaped pineapple tarts ready, we can’t forget about our yee sang either when it comes to Chinese New Year—Roar in the Year of the Tiger with These 3 Creative Yee Sang Recipes!
Thereafter, complete your CNY feast with these 2 Abundance Fish Recipes, 2 Heavenly Chicken Recipes and 2 Prosperity Vege Recipes for Chinese New Year.
Motherhood wishes you and yours an auspicious Year of the Tiger blessed with an abundance of prosperity and good health! Gong Xi Fa Cai!
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