We learn more then those who succeed..

Sorry for this long period of absence. Work was seriously the culprit of this prolonged drought from postings. Well, on a fine note, I've finished up all of my work and my final year project has dramatically came to a full stop.

The series of events that happened for my project was terribly devastating and heart wrenching. I guess in life , we all must fall in order to learn how to pick ourselves up and be stronger again.

We'll leave those melancholic thoughts aside, in this post, I'm gonna post about Pine apple tarts!

I've been itching to bake pine apple tarts for a very long time since I've got my oven and when elly said she loved pine apple tarts, i couldn't help but relieve my itch and bake the tarts. =)

As a prologue, i went online to browse through a few recipes and there was a plentiful of splendid recipes lying around the the net i tell you. Well, i especially liked this one from a baker's video blog.

Well, I'm not going to go into indepth details on how the tarts are made, most like , very basic ingredients that is all adopted from the web's concept.

Lets start of with the filling. I was skeptical about which pine apples i should choose when i found out that there is a variety to choose from. Well, i decided on the honey pine apples from thailand in the end and seriously, if you wanna do this, get the fruit vendor to peep the pine apple for you, it is much more entertaining and efficient to watch them do it then do it yourself.

Next would be to pulverize the pine apple. You can do this by grating , mincing or blending them in a food processor. For this case, Jc is a lazy person who believes in efficiency so i let my blender rip=)

For cooking the pine apple pulp, it'ld take a hell of a time. Why so you ask? We need to get almost all the liquid in the pulp out of the latter by vapourizing them. Seriously, a flame thrower would be good how ever, you can also do that by using your frying pan . Using a non stick pan would be ideal to ease the hassle of washing up, how ever, a normal would do fine too.

Pour the stuffs into the pan which is heated over with medium heat for around 5 mins and begin cooking . You'll find yourself so anxious that you'll constantly stir the mixture but , thats totally a waste of effort. Just let the mixture boil gently with the medium heat and give it a couple of stirs every 5-10 mins or so . If you don't want to dirty the stove , you could lid the wok. How ever, do cover it halve way so that the vapour can escape . This ordeal will take around an hour or so , and i strongly suggest you put more attention into the pulp at around the later 30 mins where the sauce begins to become thicken. This also meant that you should stir it more often to prevent burning.

Approximately at the 55th minute of so, the pulp will almost be thicken to an almost solid form to that of the thing that comes out of your in built disposal system (under normal circumstances please) . It will be good to add sugar or any sweetening agent at this point of time. Do not add any of those from the start as it will caramelize. Fold what is needed to be folded in and voila, you've got ur fillings done. Let it cool before working on them.

Next is the dough. This is the tricky part as you've got to get the proportions right. I suggest you follow that of those from the website. Get your flour and sugar in the mixing bowl and mix them well together. I suggest you use a whisk for this . Whisk some vanilla essence in the powder mixture. Then cut up the butter and mix them into the powder mixture. I suggest you do this with you hands, wash them of course( who knows how recent did you just clean your in-built disposal system).Keep kneading the mixture until they are consistent and voila, you've got ur dough.

I suggest you shape each of them to balls like what is shown in the pictures and it'ld make it easier to work with. do what ever shapes or design you want and place them on a piece of baking paper on the tray. Pre heat oven to around 190 or so (depending on how old your oven is ,older meant that it'ld need to be higher ). If you are making these tarts to suit a vegeterian's diet then end here and proceed with baking for 10 mins. If not, coat a layer of egg yolk on the top of the pastry and chuck them into the oven for baking. The end result should be splendid. =)