Pineapple Tart Experimenting

So I have Fridays off from work, and sometimes I like to work on a baking/food project to keep me busy. It was a couple months ago, a little bit after Chinese New Year, that I decided to embark on the journey of attempting to bake Singaporean style pineapple tarts. Being ABC (American Born Chinese), and my husband being from Singapore, I am learning more and more about the Singaporean culture. I guess you could say making pineapple tarts was my way of trying to be more Singaporean. First off, was the jam. I thought this would be easy-peasy and done in a jiffy, but I was wrong. It took a long time for the water to cook off and for the jam to form. I ended up putting a stool in the kitchen, reading a novel, as I periodically stirred and watched the jam. But finally, voila! Homemade pineapple jam- a couple hours later, haha.

I put the jam in the fridge overnight and did the rest the next day. I made the pastry dough and then when I felt like the end was almost near, I realized that this was no easy project. But I trucked my way through and rolled up the jam from the fridge into little balls.

The next step was rolling out the pastry dough and using a nifty pineapple tart cutter to cut out cute shapes to hold the pineapple jam. This was fun at first.. then I wished I had more arms and hands so I could get it done that much faster.

Then I used a paintbrush (yes, a paintbrush because I didn't have a basting brush) to put on the egg glaze on the pastry tarts. Next step was for me to put the little rolled up balls onto the tarts. After I filled up the cookie sheet, I stuck it in the oven, and then several minutes later, finished pineapple tarts!

Hurray, I had done it! Yeah, I know they weren't very pretty, but they were tasty, and that's the most important part. Let's see if I actually have the patience to make these for next year's Chinese New Year!