I have been procrastinating whether to make pineapple cookies for Chinese New Year. The hassle of preparing the pineapple paste and then the crust deterred me and the fact that I had never made pineapple cookies made this task even more challenging.
A few days ago, my brother told me that his friend is going to make her own pineapple cookies. I thought to myself if a pregnant mom can make it so can I. So I started surfing around, checking and evaluating which recipes I should use. I chanced upon a food blog which I like and I decided to use her recipe to make my pineapple jam.
Since it is my first attempt making the jam, I used only two medium size pineapples. I don’t to waste my ingredients if the jam did not make it.
I stood by the stove for more than one hour, stirring so that it will not get burnt. Indeed, it is not that difficult to make the jam but it does need a lot of patience and effort. The pineapple jam turns out golden orange and tastes tangy and sweet with a faint flavour of the spices.
Next time I will try to make the jam without the lemon juice as some feedback that the jam is slightly sour.
As I have not decided whether to do an open or enclosed pineapple tarts, thus the pineapple jam that I made is quite moist. For open tarts, use a moist jam as it will still further dry out. I will need to further cook the jam as the enclosed tarts need dry and thick jam that can be rolled into a ball to be enclosed with the crust.
Preparation time: 15-20 minutes
Cooking time: 90 – 120 minutes
Yield: about 400g of pineapple jam
Ingredients:
2 pineapples (I use 2 almost ripe pineapples)
2 tbs of lemon juice (optional)
1 cinnamon stick
1 star anise (optional)
2 cloves
7 tbs heapful of granulated sugar (or to taste)
Step by step instructions:
- Remove the skin, the “eyes” and the core of the pineapples.
- Grate them using the box grater into a large bowl. I didn’t realize them pineapple has so much juice. As the pineapples I bought are almost ripe, they broke down easily while grating.
- Drain the juice from the grated pineapple and put them aside to be used later.
- Transfer the grated pineapple into a pot, which in this case I used a non-stick pot.
- Add and mix three tablespoons of sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon stick, star anise and cloves to the grated pineapple and bring the pot to a boil using medium-high fire.
- Lower the heat to medium fire and stir it occasionally so that it will not get burn.
- Add the juice gradually when the juice in the pot slowly evaporates.
- When the jam is almost 80% done, add more sugar to taste. Our ripe pineapples are very sweet so I only added four more tablespoons heapful of sugar.
- Off the heat when the jam looks dry and sticky, let it cool and then discard the spices.
- Store the jam in an air-tight container and can be kept in fridge for up to 4 weeks.
Source: jothetartqueen – Homemade pineapple jam (for pineapple tarts)
