Cream Cheese Pineapple Tarts For The Chinese New Year

Is it coincidence or what?  When my daughter, Sharon asked me to have a look at the pineapple tarts she just made, i could not believe my eyes, the both of us used the same pineapple tart mold!!!!  We had a good laugh.

When i was asked what i am grateful for, i will not hesitate and mentioned that the internet is what i am most grateful for.  It has given me a chance to posts my tested recipes on this blog and share with friends and strangers(who will and have become friends) to try out these recipes.  I  do not have to carry hard copies of recipes whenever i wish to bake or cook - google is my best friend.  The next grateful aspect is skype, i am now able to teach or discuss on video chat with friends and family , especially with Sharon who is into baking and i am most proud of her.  Keep up the good work, dear Sharon.

  I have been baking pineapple tarts with all these 3 pastries that i have posted -
Pineapple Tarts , Pineapple "Open" Tarts and Pineapple Roll and it is about time to post another pineapple tart pastry for all of you to try.  This pastry is very light because i did not use any liquid.  I hope that sour cream is not hard to come by in Malaysia or other parts of the world, if so, Sour Cream substitute link is HERE

Ingredients:

Pastry:
3 1/4 cups cake flour
3 tbsp cornflour/cornstarch
3 tbsp icing/confectioners'/powdered sugar
1/2 tsp fine salt

8 ozs/225 g butter - cold, diced into 1/2 inch cubes
2 ozs/57 g cream cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
2 egg yolks

Filling:

Pineapple jam -  (recipe is HERE)

Glaze:  1 egg yolk plus 1 tsp water

METHOD:

Put 3 1/4 cups cake flour, 3 tbsp cornflour/cornstarch, 3 tbsp icing/confectioner's/powdered sugar and 1/2 tsp salt into the bowl of the food processor.  Pulse several times so as to combine these ingredients.  If you are going to mix by hand, pass these ingredients thrrough the sieve.

Add in the cubed cold butter and mix the butter into the flour with a butter knife so that the cubes are coated with butter before giving several pulses until the butter is pea size.

Mix the cream cheese with the sour cream together and then add in the egg yolks.  Mix well.

Add in to the butter and flour mixture in the food processor.

Pulse until the dough forms into a ball.

Remove and form into a round disk , wrap with plastic wrap and leave in the refrigerator to rest for at least an hour.

After resting the dough is ready for rolling and cut into tarts with the mold of your choice.

I like to divide the cold dough into 4 pieces,  roll one piece and leave the other 3 in the refrigerator.

Using a 1/4 inch rolling pin guard, roll dough out and cut dough with the tart mold of your choice.  Leave the surplus dough back to the refrigerator and repeat with the other 3 pieces of dough.(the cut out tarts are best to go back to refrigerator to chill).

When all the dough are used for cut out into tarts - oh remember to leave a tiny piece of dough for decoration.  Arrange the tarts onto baking sheets and glaze the top with egg glaze.  Back to the refrigerator to chill.  You will have 2 half sheet pans of 99 tarts.

Preheat oven to 350f.

Now to tackle the filling, using a round 1/2 teaspoon measure the pineapple jam.  I like to cut out a tiny piece of plastic wrap and put it onto the spoon, dip my finger in water and put it down the spoon, the the jam will come out easily when you lift the plastic wrap off the spoon.  With wet fingers, put jam filling lined up in a lined tray, make 99 pieces.

Take baking sheet filled with glazed tarts from the refrigerator and top with the jam filling.

With the remaining piece of dough, roll into a log and then roll until very thin.  Cut into tiny noodle strips for decoration.

Repeat process for the other baking sheet and glaze the decoration with egg glaze.

Put to bake in preheated oven 350 f for 15 mins until golden brown.

Let cool before removing from baking tray and make sure they are thorough cold before packing into airtight containers.

Enjoy and Kung Hei Fatt Choy