Friday, January 23, 2009

Chinese New Yr Goodies - Pineapple Tart & Peanut Cookies

It's Chinese New Year, the time for baking is up. And I, being the assistant to MH, has been helping every night after work. Tiring, fruitful and fun - these 3 words could summarise for me for the past few nights.


MH started sifting the 1 斤 plain flour. MH specified that it's not 1kg. I wonder y?

And she also sifted the flour twice.



If you want those melt-in-the-mouth pineapple crust, this is the one!



Add 1 3/4 blocks of butter (250g per block) to the flour and mix to a crumbly state. Follow by 5 egg yolks and 1 egg white.



Pineapple filling; equivalent to 10 pineapples worth of flesh. I didn't witness to the cooking of the pineapples. From my recollection, MH would put in cinnamon, star anise and other similar ingredient to the pot and also sugar as well. And she'll constantly stir over low-med heat and taste test at the same time for sweetness.



The pineapple juice will gradually evaporate under heat.



Back to the dough; roll the dough out before cutting round shapes out.



Put a tsp full of pineapple filling onto the dough.





MH's style of pineapple cookies.



Yes, they're bigger than the normal ones sold at the bakery shops.



1st baking; 20mins @ preheated oven of 200 Deg C.



Apply egg wash on the the tarts. I mixed 2 egg yolks with a splash of water.



2nd baking; another 20mins in the oven.



The 1st batch. MH commented that they were not 'golden-brown' enough.



So the tray went back to the oven for another 10mins of baking.



The true 'golden' pineapple tarts.







Sadly, my instant bite told me the crust was more salty than previous years'. MH realised too that she bought the wrong butter. We have been using SCS's salted version all the while, but Golden Churn's even more salty.



Lastly, the pineapple tarts are laid on top of cupcake liners before they were being stacked away in the bottle.



I brought some to office to share with my colleagues. Ah San, thought it looked like a leaf! Do you feel the same??



The next evening... also marked the last night of CNY goodies baking.



Guard dog sticking around on the sofa.



Finally! It's the peanut cookie's turn to make the lime light. OB has a soft heart for our peanut cookies, and would not consider sharing them once she got her hands on them!



The main ingredient, grounded roasted peanuts. MH bought and roasted peanuts before blending them to fine grounded peanuts.



1st, mixed the sifted plain flour and icing sugar together. MH made sure that both dry ingredients are combined thoroughly.



2nd most important ingredient, the cooking oil. It's one that gave away the fragrance of the peanut cookie. So indulge these peanut devils once a year as much as your stomach can hold.





Add enough oil to roll the flour, sugar and grounded peanuts to a dough.







Guard dog has dozed off silently by himself.



The texture of the prebaked peanut cookie dough is equivalent to a uncooked fishball.



Unlike pineapple tart, egg yolk, instead of egg wash, was applied directly on the peanut dough before baking.



Trial tray.



We baked them at preheated oven of 200 Deg C for about 20-30mins, or until top has turned golden brown.









The peanut cookie literally melted in my mouth...



Gosh, if I hadn't control myself after I finished the 2nd cookie, I would have finished a whole bottle by myself!