Melt in your mouth buttery crust
With a sweet pineapple filling
Traditional Taiwanese Pineapple Cakes
A Heartfelt Taste of Taiwan
- A pastry celebrated and gifted year round
- Less of a cake and more of a tart or cookie
- Secret ingredient to these little delights is milk powder
- A sign of good luck and fortune when receiving these treats
What you need
Pastry dough
- 100 grams unsalted butter
- 40 grams granulated sugar
- 25 grams powdered milk
- 230 grams cake flour
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 1-2 tsp milk (optional)
Pineapple Jam Filling
- 330 grams fresh pineapple, peeled, cored and chopped finely
- 115 grams granulated sugar
- 40 grams unsalted butter
- pinch of salt
- 1/4 tsp fresh orange juice
- 1/2 tsp orange zest
What to do
1. For the pastry dough, use a food processor to blend all dry ingredients. Cut in your butter and pulse until butter is evenly distributed. Add egg and egg yolk and pulse until your dough comes together. You can add 1-2 tsp of milk if your mix is too dry. But no more than a tsp or two.
2. Wrap your dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
3. For the pineapple filling, place your pineapple in a strainer, and let the juices drain into a bowl beneath the strainer. You can use a wooden spoon to push on the pineapple, this will push the juices out!
4. In a medium sized saucepan, over medium heat, cook pineapple, sugar, lemon juice and salt. (Note: you will see the juices from the pineapple evaporate, this is good, we want to dry out the pineapple, this could take about 20-30 minutes). Once pineapple is cooked down, remove from the heat and add butter. Pour pineapple mix into a bowl and refrigerate until ready to fill pastries.
5. Take 8-10 (this depends on how large you want your cakes, and how many molds you have) metal square molds and place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. (If you dont have molds, that is totally ok, you can just bake the cakes like cookies) Take you dough out of the fridge and divide into 8-10 equal pieces of dough. You will want to press or roll out each piece of dough so that it is flat and ready for pineapple filling. I usually place my dough in between two pieces of plastic wrap and roll out with a rolling pin.
6. Once your dough is all rolled out, place about a 1-1 1/2 tsp of pineapple filling onto each flattened piece of dough. Mold the dough around the pineapple, then press the dough into each metal mold. Try to leave a little room at the top and edges of each mold, as pastries will expand as they bake.
7. Once all pastries are assembled, place your cookie sheet in the fridge to chill for 20-30 min. Preheat oven to 335 degrees, and bake pastries for 8 minutes on one side- then using tongs flip pastries and bake for another 6-8 minutes. Pastries will be golden brown and a little tender to touch when removed from the oven. That’s ok!
8. You can serve warm, but I personally like my pastries to sit over night in a sealed container and enjoyed at room temperature. The flavors have time to set and the texture in general just gets better after 12-24 hours!
2. Wrap your dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
3. For the pineapple filling, place your pineapple in a strainer, and let the juices drain into a bowl beneath the strainer. You can use a wooden spoon to push on the pineapple, this will push the juices out!
4. In a medium sized saucepan, over medium heat, cook pineapple, sugar, lemon juice and salt. (Note: you will see the juices from the pineapple evaporate, this is good, we want to dry out the pineapple, this could take about 20-30 minutes). Once pineapple is cooked down, remove from the heat and add butter. Pour pineapple mix into a bowl and refrigerate until ready to fill pastries.
5. Take 8-10 (this depends on how large you want your cakes, and how many molds you have) metal square molds and place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. (If you dont have molds, that is totally ok, you can just bake the cakes like cookies) Take you dough out of the fridge and divide into 8-10 equal pieces of dough. You will want to press or roll out each piece of dough so that it is flat and ready for pineapple filling. I usually place my dough in between two pieces of plastic wrap and roll out with a rolling pin.
6. Once your dough is all rolled out, place about a 1-1 1/2 tsp of pineapple filling onto each flattened piece of dough. Mold the dough around the pineapple, then press the dough into each metal mold. Try to leave a little room at the top and edges of each mold, as pastries will expand as they bake.
7. Once all pastries are assembled, place your cookie sheet in the fridge to chill for 20-30 min. Preheat oven to 335 degrees, and bake pastries for 8 minutes on one side- then using tongs flip pastries and bake for another 6-8 minutes. Pastries will be golden brown and a little tender to touch when removed from the oven. That’s ok!
8. You can serve warm, but I personally like my pastries to sit over night in a sealed container and enjoyed at room temperature. The flavors have time to set and the texture in general just gets better after 12-24 hours!
Helpful tips
Here are some important Pro tips by Maude
- Chilling your dough before baking is critical. If you want a nice mold and shape to your pastries, don’t skip any of the instructed chilling steps!
- Will will have some pineapple filling leftover likely, thats ok! This jam tastes great again after freezing, or you can use that filling to stuff something else :).
- I find if I use my hands with this dough, it can get crumbly. So definitely use plastic wrap to help roll out the dough and when shaping around the pineapple filling.
- These little bundles of joy will last about 3 days at room temperature. I haven’t tried freezing these pastries, but I would imagine that freezing before and after baking would work just fine!
