How hard can this be right? As usual, I was so wrong!
First obstacle: Spotting the pineapples in the supermarkets was easy, then came choosing them. Eh, how to choose them? How do you know if they are ripe/sweet/sour? I felt like whipping the phone out and calling my mom to ask her that, except it would be like 2am on her side and it is so bad to wake her from her slumber with a silly question like that. So the Husby and I tried our best and picked what we thought was the best candidate by using our noses.
Second obstacle: So I have the pineapple, hurray! Then how to cut pineapple huh? As I am not a big fan of pineapples, I have never bought the fruit before. All this stemmed from one incident when I was five or six years old. My mom had warned me not to lick the pineapple; being the ever so "obedient" daughter, I just had to do the forbidden act. *ouch* And hence I never really liked the yellow fruit that bit my tongue. Back to my odyssey of cutting the pineapple: It was the mighty Internet to the rescue! By googling "how to cut a pineapple", I discovered sites dedicated to cutting the fruit and video demonstrations too! Now if only I had since this video before buying the pineapple! Apparently by pulling at the leaves, you can tell if it is ripe. I don't think it works though. The cool tip in the video was to place the pineapple upside down in the fridge for 30 mins to allow the sugars to be even throughout the pineapple - never knew about that! Do I believe it would work? Not exactly, but it does not matter to me since I am going to cook the whole pineapple.
Third obstacle: Shredding and cooking the pineapple shreds. That was a long... long... long... process of like what seemed like eternity. Well, of at least three hours. It was tiring to stand there, trying to chop the pineapple up into small pieces like how we do garlic. Then I had to stir the paste. One thing I learnt was that there are more pineapple juices in the real fruit than from the canned ones, so to speed up your cooking of the pineapple jam, remember to remove as much juice as possible.
Fourth obstacle: Making the dough itself. This time round it just did not turn out right. It could be there was too little butter, and too much cornmeal. The use of the rolling pin to get an even dough of about 5mm thick in order to use the cookie cutters was a challenge too. It definitely looks easier than done! Now I know why these tarts are so pricey in stores - it is not the ingredients, but the effort put into making it.
Just in case you are wondering why my tarts do not look shiny like those in stores, I was too lazy to brush some egg yolk on the tarts. There is also some science involved in the making of pineapple jam, or rather the principles of food microbiology in preserving food. Ever wonder why the jam is always so sweet, especially those in stores? By adding lots of sugar, you are eliminating the water, and therefore the chances of microbes growing in the jam is reduced. Water, as you all know, is essential to the survival of all organisms. (Wonder if it is different in Mars??) It is similar to why salted fish can be kept for a long time, because it has no water in it. So the bakers add lots of sugar to the jam so that the tarts have a long shelf life. Of course it could also be that during Chinese New Year, you want to eat something sweet!
My pineapple tart recipe is still not perfected, but that shall have to wait till the day I get really bored and buy my next pineapple. For the record, one whole pineapple makes about 60 tarts (only!?!). I have a new level of respect for my mom and grandma who can churn out those lovely tarts!
Looking-pretty-but-not-tasty pineapple tarts
