Raffles Boutique · Traditional Peranakan
The pineapple tart
The pineapple tart of the Peranakan kitchen is a bite-sized buttery shortcrust with a jam of pineapple cooked down with cinnamon and star anise until dark: the Lunar New Year biscuit of Singapore, sold all year in tins at the Raffles Boutique.
Taste profile
Pair it with
A kopi, Singapore coffee with condensed milk, or a pot of jasmine tea.
The Peranakan families of Singapore and Malacca cooked pineapple, the fruit of prosperity, into a thick jam and baked it in a rich shortcrust for the Lunar New Year; the tarts are exchanged between families in tins and eaten by the dozen. The Raffles pastry kitchen makes its version with a crumbly, almost sandy pastry and a jam cooked for hours with cinnamon, clove and star anise, and sells it in the Boutique in two sizes of tin.
It is the gift to bring home from Singapore: it keeps for weeks, needs no ice pack, and tastes of the island.
The home version · serves 6
Ingredients
- For the jam: 1 large ripe pineapple, 150 g sugar, 1 cinnamon stick, 2 star anise, 3 cloves, juice of half a lemon
- For the pastry: 250 g butter, soft, 60 g icing sugar, 2 yolks, 350 g flour, 30 g cornflour, a pinch of salt
- Egg yolk for glazing
Method
- Grate the pineapple, cook it with sugar, spices and lemon over low heat for 60 to 90 minutes until dark, thick and jammy; cool and roll into 8 g balls.
- Beat butter and icing sugar, add the yolks, then flour, cornflour and salt into a soft dough. Chill 30 minutes.
- Roll 4 mm thick, cut small flower shapes with a pineapple-tart cutter or a 4 cm cutter, press a hollow with your thumb.
- Set a ball of jam in each, glaze the pastry with yolk.
- Bake at 170 °C for 18 minutes until pale gold; cool completely and store in a tin.
Where to taste it
The original The pineapple tart
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