My mother bakes awesomely delicious Pineapple Tarts (Bánh Dứa) and that is one of the highlights Traditional Vietnamese Food
whenever we go back home for Lunar New Year. Pineapple tarts take up
lots of hours to make as there is the cooking of pineapple jam (which
can take hours) and preparation of pastry followed by baking. Usually,
my mother will make the pineapple jam in advance and keep it in the
fridge until needed.
Unlike
some poor tasting recipes, my mother’s pineapple tarts have a nice
buttery smell pastry which melts in the mouth. Here is also one of my
favorite Traditional Vietnamese Food.
It does not crumble in your hands, yet it nicely disintegrates when
savored. Over here, I only managed to get the recipe for the pastry and
will put up the recipe for the pineapple jame and baking time when I get
my hands on her secrets. If you have been baking pineapple tarts, try
this pastry recipe for a change.
Sift
the flour and add in the castor sugar. Using the pointed ends of a
fork, rub the butter into the flour until it looked like fine bread
crumbs. If necessary, use fingertips to continue rubbing lightly the
bigger pieces into finer pieces. Add egg yolks and cold water at the
same time and lightly combine them using finger tips (rather than
kneading them like bread dough) before rolling out to desired
thickness between baking / greased paper. (The fork and fingertip
technique is what makes the pastry special). Use mound to shape tarts.
Lightly dust the pastry and mound with flour before cutting with the
mound.Roll a small amount of jam into a ball. Press the ball of jam onto
the tart pastry. I bet you will fall in love from the first time
tasting this Traditional Vietnamese Food.
For
baking, bake using Gas Mark 3 (160 degrees Celsius / 325 degrees
Fahrenheit) for 20 minutes. When placing jam onto the pastry, take
caution not to smear jam onto the sides as this will easily “burn” and
render the sides of the pastry (the flowery design) darker.