No matter how many kitchen gadgets I get, I always seem to need one more.
We were invited to a barbecue recently, and I decided to bring something summer-y, settling on making pineapple tartlets.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a tart pan, let alone any tartlet pans, but I do have cupcake tins, and it turns out that if you have that and a large cookie cutter, you can make tartlets, too.
I actually combined recipes from two different blogs for this recipe. I use the tartlet shell recipe from “A Baking Journey.” You can find it at https://www.abakingjourney.com/tartlet-shells/. I used the filling recipe from “Hawaii Travel with Kids.” You can find that original post at https://hawaiitravelwithkids.com/hawaiian-recipes-pineapple-tarts/.
Pineapple Tartlets
Ingredients
Shell Ingredients
- 3 1/3 cup flour
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup butter cold
- 2 eggs
Filling Ingredients
- 14 ounces sweetened condensed milk
- 15.25 ounces pineapple tidbits in juice
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1 can whipped cream
- 3-4 tablespoons shredded coconut
Instructions
- For the shells, add the dry ingredients to a food processor (or just use a bowl and a pastry cutter or two forks) and pulse to mix. Cut the butter into small cubes and incorporate the butter into the dry ingredients until it resembles small crumbles. Try to handle the butter as little as possible—colder is better.
- Now incorporate the eggs until the mixture is a smooth dough. Dump it onto your countertop and knead the dough just enough to make sure it’s smooth. Spilt the dough into two, even pieces, and place each ball of dough between two large pieces of parchment paper and roll the dough out to about 1/8-inch thick. Leave the dough between the pieces of parchment and place them on trays in the refrigerator for an hour.
- Remove the dough from the refrigerator and cut large circles out of the dough with a cookie cutter. (Mine was about four inches in diameter, and if you have one with pretty edges, use that.) Place each circle into the wells of a cupcake tin, pressing down so the dough goes evenly up the sides of each and there are no air bubbles underneath.
- Poke the bottom of each pastry with a fork and then place the cupcake tins in the refrigerator for another hour.
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and bake for 10 minutes or until the shells are starting to turn golden brown.
- While the shells bake, mix the filling. In a mixing bowl, combine the sweetened condensed milk, sour cream and seven tablespoons of the pineapple juice from the can.
- Dice about two dozen of the tidbits and set aside.
- Carefully pour the filling into the prepared shells, being careful not to fill them to the top or overflow them (they will stick in the cupcake tin if they overflow). Add a few pieces of pineapple to each tart.
- Increase the oven temperature to 375, and bake the tarts for seven minutes.
- Remove the tarts from the oven and let them cool completely.
- While they cool, place the shredded coconut in a small pan over medium heat, stirring often, for about three minutes or until much of the coconut is golden brown. Remove it from the heat.
- When the tarts are cooled, remove them from the cupcake tin and top them with whipped cream, toasted coconut and a few more pieces of pineapple. Serve.
These were literally gone before the meat was done cooking and got rave reviews. If you’re traveling with these, I do recommend waiting until you reach your destination to add the whipped cream and coconut. Mine fell a bit in transit.
And it was nice to be able to create something that looked fancy even though I lack the fancy equipment. I’ll probably invest in a full-size tart pan at some point, but for now, I have it all under control.
This piece first appeared in print on June 10, 2021.
Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.
