In praise of pineapple tarts

We recently celebrated the Chinese New Year here, which means that - in a similar manner to Thanksgiving - we went around visiting our friends and relatives and stuffed our faces with snacks and pastries. Except that according to tradition, there are fifteen days to the Chinese New Year period. That means fifteen days (and usually more) of disregarding whatever visual or physical cues for you to stop putting food into your mouth. I could not possibly do justice to the many traditional Chinese New Year goodies and foodstuffs – which are legion, and probably each deserve their own write-up – so I shall focus on just the one.


Pineapple tarts are perhaps the delicacy most synonymous with Chinese New Year in Singapore and Malaysia, even though they are sold all year round. These tarts are bite-size pastries that either contain or are topped with pineapple jam – which is in turn fresh pineapple boiled and caramelised to a gummy texture and flavoured with lots of sugar, cinnamon, cloves and star anise. I do not have much of a sweet tooth, but I am such a fool for these that it is quite scary. There is something so satisfying about the sweetness of pineapple jam that renders me completely unable to resist popping another one in my mouth. Of course, makers of the really great pineapple tarts do not neglect the pastry as well – which is typically made to a fluffy, buttery texture. It is physically impossible for me to pause and count how many of these I eat in one sitting, and it requires an almost superhuman effort for me to stop.


I am not particularly skilled at pastry, but having tried my hand at it on three continents I have to say that it seems much more difficult in Singapore. The heat and the humidity cause many key ingredients in pastry to behave differently, and one needs to be aware of these in prepping, storing and using dough. It seems that you can make the same recipe, the same way, twice and end up with two vastly different results.

I am thinking especially of the perils of working with butter. There was a recent New York Times article about the home baker and his or her ignorance of the finer points in using butter – with special attention to the melting point of this fabulous ingredient and the importance of not allowing it to melt before using it. In Singapore you have precious little time after taking butter out of the refrigerator and before it melts; so you either need to be able to store it at a temperature just slightly below the optimal temperature to use it (65F according to the article) and then only take it out when you need it, or keep a constant eye on it once it is out. Because of the fragility of these ingredients and their sensitivity to their surroundings, I should think that beating and whisking by hand would not be advised.

In addition I would venture to say that many of the local traditional desserts and pastries are much more time-consuming and labour-intensive than their Western counterparts. One of my all-time favourites – kueh lapis – is a layered cake that has to made layer by layer. This means that it has to be taken out of the oven every 7 or 8 minutes, or once the previous layer has set, for the next layer of batter to be smoothed on top. This step is then repeated anywhere upwards of 20 to 30 times. It is tough work for the home baker, but absolutely worth it.

Making pineapple tarts is not without its difficulties either. You need for the pineapple to break down and then to bind with the flavourings and spices into a mixture that is gummy but not sticky. The former requires time and constant heat, and the latter is usually accomplished by adding cornstarch, and making the jam one day ahead of time and refrigerating.

For some reason, perhaps as aesthetic stimulation, I usually prefer the tarts that have the jam visible as a topping; but they are also made as pastries enclosing the jam, or in a roll with the jam visible at both ends. Whatever the case, if the pastry is light and flaky, if the pineapple jam is hearty and sweet without being cloying – then it is judged a great success and I proceed to consume a prodigious amount of them. Oh, who am I kidding? Even if they are bad, I eat them anyway.