Pineapple tarts are tasty small bite-size pastries with pineapple jam. Customarily eaten during festive seasons like Chinese New Year, Hari Raya and Deepavali in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.
Peel and remove cores of pineapples and roughly cut into small 1.5 inch pieces. Blend the pineapple pieces in a food processor until you get a coarse puree.
Place the pineapple puree and spices into a wok, bring to a boil and cook on medium heat for 20 minutes to reduce the pineapple juice.
Add in the caster sugar, stir and combine well, bring to a boil again. Then simmer on low heat, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour or until the pineapple jam has become a darker golden colour and has just thickened enough to roll into small balls. (Do not make the jam too dry as the baking process will dry up the jam further). Set aside and allow to cool.
Once the pineapple jam has cooled down, using wet hands and a small teaspoon, roll the jam into small balls.
For the pastry:
Sift the gluten free all-purpose flour and corn starch into a large mixing bowl and mix well. Then sprinkle in the xanthan gum and add vegan butter into the mixture. Rub the cold butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs.
Add the icing sugar, eggs and 3 tablespoons water, gently knead to a soft dough (do not over knead). Divide the dough into 2 portions, wrap each portion in cling wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
Remove one portion of the dough after chilling for 1 hour in the refrigerator.
Dust work surface and rolling pin with gluten free flour. Roll the dough to 0.7 cm/ 0.3 inch thickness. Then cut the tart bases into 4 cm/1.6 inch with a round crinkle edged cookie cutter. Repeat with the second portion of the dough.
Roll the pastry leftover into 0.3 cm/0.12 inch thickness and cut out the stars with the mini star cookie cutter. Set aside.
For assembling and baking the tarts:
Using your thumb, carefully make a cavity into the centre of each tart base. Then brush all the tart bases including the edges with egg wash.
Place a ball of pineapple jam onto the cavity of the tart base, tap to flatten the pineapple jam slightly.
Preheat fan-forced oven to 160C or 320F.
Place the tarts 1 cm/0.4 inch apart onto non-stick large baking tray lined with baking paper.
Bake the tarts in the oven for 15 minutes or until pastry is golden. Allow to cool on a wire rack.