CNY Special: Pineapple Tarts (Nastar) Recipe
Pineapple tarts are no doubt one of the most popular Chinese New Year cookies. Similar to the Taiwanese pineapple pastry, pineapple tarts are jam-filled bite-sized pastries. These pastries are soft and the crust melts in your mouth, a delicate balance of savoury pastry with the sweet pineapple taste. The jam filling may be used as toppings on the pastry cookies, otherwise the pastry may fully enclose the jam fillings instead.
Fun Fact: Pineapple tarts are also equivalent to Nastar, i.e. Nanas tart – which originates from Indonesia.
There are so many great things about celebrating Chinese New Year. If I have to rank them, the top 5 reasons why Chinese New Year is awesome would be in this order:
- CNY cookies – from prawn to peanuts, seaweed to pineapple, spicy to sweet… There are so many variations, and all so very addictive!
- Reunions – for someone who works abroad and only returns home once or twice every year, reunions are a big plus as it’s just so much easier to meet up with friends & families
- Gambling – this may not sound very pleasant, but I love gambling. It brings out the “ahjumma” in me
- New clothes – that spark you get from wearing a new dress or a cute top…. Oooh!
- Red money packets, i.e. Angpau – let’s not kid ourselves, money IS happiness
In spite of all these reasons, I confess that I hate the soapy & sentimental CNY commercial videos on TV every year. They are cringy to the bones, they play with my feelings and make me cry, I don’t like that. 🙁
Jump to Recipe
I am delighted to share a couple of troubleshooting tips for making these delicious pineapple tarts. Aren’t you guys happy that I have done all the hard work for you? 😉
Butter or Margarine?
In the UK, I believe, margarine is better known as spreads. There were some suggestions to use margarine over butter in the pineapple tart recipe in order to ensure the melting & crumbly texture of the pastry.
To be very frank, I am not a fan of margarine at all. It may be a good non-dairy substitute to butter, but margarine has a much higher fat content. Margarine is also considered as processed food. Besides, the higher milk content in butter creates much more flavour in baked goods!
Even so, I attempted baking the pineapple tarts with both butter and spread (margarine). The final verdict is: in sufficient amounts, butter also gives the desired melting & crumbly texture to the pineapple tarts.
No egg whites
Surprisingly, I found an ingredient which actually reduces the melting & crumbly texture of the pineapple tarts – egg whites! Egg whites are not an ideal ingredient for making pineapple tarts for the following reasons:
- The egg white actually improves the bind between the pastry. Hence, a strong pastry will result in a cookie-like crust (doesn’t mean it’s not equally delicious!)
- The colour of the pastry and/or egg wash is paler if egg white is added. Once again, it does not result in a less delicious cookie. However, it is important to maintain the authenticity of the traditional pineapple tart – which is yellow, sweet and crumbly
I wish everyone a very Happy Chinese New Year, may the year of the Golden Pig bless you with an abundance of delicious food. 🙂
Pineapple Tarts (Nastar)
Ingredients
Pineapple Jam Filling (enough for 2 batches)
- 2 Pineapples
- 4 Cloves
- 1 Cinnamon stick
- 110 g Caster sugar
Pastry
- 125 g Butter, replaceable with spread
- 200 g All purpose flour
- 1 tbsp Cornstarch
- 20 g Icing sugar
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 1 Egg yolk
Egg wash
- 1 Egg yolk
- 1 tsp Water , cold
Instructions
Pineapple Jam Filling
- Cut and blend the pineapples with a blender. Run the blended pineapple through a sieve, removing as much juice as possible.
- Cook the pineapple at medium heat in a large pan, along with the cinnamon stick and cloves. Stirring occasionally. This step is to remove as much liquid through evaporation. This can be tested by running your spatula across the pineapple puree on the pan and observing the movement – the drier the puree, the lesser liquid will run out.
- After circa. 30 mins, the pineapple will appear drier now. Add the sugar and continue cooking (about another 20 mins) until the puree becomes golden brown in colour with jam-like consistency. Leave aside to cool completely.
Pastry
- In a mixing bowl, mix the butter, flour and cornstarch thoroughly with hand. Add the remaining dry ingredients and mix to combine. Finally, add the egg yolk into the bowl and continue mixing with hand. Alternatively, you can use a food processor for this step.
- Lightly knead the pastry dough in the bowl or on a surface for a short while. Chill the dough in the fridge for 40 minutes. *
Making the tarts
- Roll out the pineapple fillings and pastry dough into balls of size 1/2 tbsp and 1/2 tsp respectively. Flatten the pastry dough to cover & wrap the pineapple filling in the centre. Gently pinch & roll in palms to reduce wrinkles. **
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius fan-assisted. Line a baking tray and place the pineapple balls slightly apart from each other.
- Egg wash the pineapple balls. Bake them in the preheated oven for 18 minutes. Do a second egg wash on the tarts and continue baking for another 5 minutes.
- Serve when cooled. As there are no preservatives, I do recommend to keep the pineapple tarts in an airtight container always. Enjoy!
Notes
6 Comments
Mary
Hi there! I will be making closed pinapple tarts for the first time. I made the filling a week back and formed into balls and left in the freezer. I made the dough last night and formed into balls. My query is: I want to bake them in the evening. Can I fill the dough with the filling and leave in the refrigerator till then?
SforB
Hi Mary, I would say yes! Maybe just take them out of the fridge for 5-10 minutes before you bake them.
Upplady
for me too! CNY is not CNY without the Pineapple tarts for sure! And luckily for me, I still have 2 days to churn out these tarts for my family! Just a quick question – it s okay if i just use my own clarified butter and not ghee right? hope you see thisby today so i can get on with the recipe 😀
SforB
I used the normal block of unsalted butter 🙂 It should work just fine!
May Jin
these are so delicious!! A little difficult workin with the pastry. And my god, the jam took forever to cook! Nonetheless, very happy with the results
SforB
The pastry can be kept in the fridge overnight to firm up better 🙂