02/09/08

Cinnamon Buns/Pineapple Tarts

The Chinese New Year is a major holiday in Singapore and is a period where many homebakers embark on a major baking spree. This year, I decided to make some traditional open top pineapple tarts. For me, I love things made in the old ways. I have always lamented the loss of traditional food made in the old ways. Quality and excellence certainly has taken a backseat to profits and expedience in most store bought goods.

This year, I wanted to make everything from scratch, including the pineapple filling. This means having to grate down four pineapples. To achieve a balance of tartness and texture, a mix of ripe and almost ripe pineapples were used. After grating, they were patiently boiled with some spices. Homemade filling that is made with grated pineapple retain the fibrous texture of the pineapple whereas store-bought filling is too gummy for my liking.

Where the pastry is concerned, people are generally polarised between two types of textures. There is the 'melt in your mouth' type and the shortcrust type. I prefer a texture in between because I hated the melt-in-your-mouth type. Every time I eat this type, I'd have to reach for a drink to flush down all the crumbled bits before I choked.

This year, I decided to rope in my daughter to introduce her to some homebaking. I told her that her years of play-dough experience should come in handy. The tarts were assembled by my wife and daughter. They didn't look too bad for first timer effort. I love the generous pineapple filling.

Cinnamon Buns

The endless rounds of visiting with family left me no time to prepare bread. As a last resort, I decided to make some cinnamon buns at midnight last night. After the dough was prepared, I popped them into the fridge. They were rolled the next morning, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and voila.