Pineapple filling (to be made a day earlier)
2 pineapples
200g castor sugar
2cm piece cinnamon stick
2 segments of one star anise
2 cloves
1 tbsp lemon or lime juice (optional)
To make the jam, grate the pineapple coarsely. Combine the grated pineapple with the rest of the ingredients in a heavy-based saucepan and cook over a moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until mixture is almost dry. Set aside to cool.
Pastry dough
340g plain flour
½ tsp salt
1 tbsp icing sugar
250g butter, cubed
1 egg yolk
25ml iced-cold water
½ tsp vanilla essence
1 beaten egg, for glazing
Put sifted flour, salt and sugar in a mixing bowl. Rub in butter until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Beat in the egg yolk and add ice-cold water and essence. Mix well to form a dough. Place in a plastic bag and chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
Roll pastry out to 0.5 cm thickness on a lightly-floured tabletop and cut out rounds with a tart cutter. Fill each piece of cut-out pastry with pineapple jam filling. Pinch a small neat frill around the edging. Cut thin strips of pastry to form a lattice on top of each tart. Glaze the strips with beaten egg.
Place tarts on a greased baking tray and bake in preheated oven at 180°C for 15 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 170°C and continue to bake for another 5 minutes or until golden. Turn tarts out to cool on a wire rack before storing in air-tight containers.
I had 2 recipes to try out and found that this was the melting ones. The other one was a bit more dry and crispy.