Scottish Pineapple Tarts
Traditional Scottish bakery-style Pineapple Tarts! Crisp shortcrust pastry filled with easy 2-ingredient pineapple jam, whipped cream, and finished with a bright yellow icing. The ultimate nostalgic Scottish tea-time treat.
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Servings: 12 Tarts
INGREDIENTS
For the Pastry
- 175 g Block Margarine or Butter (at room temperature)
- 65 g Caster Sugar
- 250 g Plain Flour
For the Jam
- 435 g Pineapple Slices in Juice (usually one tin)
- 250 g Caster Sugar
For the Cream Filling
- 300 ml Double Cream
- 3 tbsp Icing Sugar
For the Yellow Icing
- 300 g Icing Sugar
- 3-4 tbsp Water
- Yellow Food Colouring
INSTRUCTIONS
For the Pastry
- In a large bowl, cream together the butter/margarine and sugar until light and fluffy. Sift in the flour and mix to create a soft dough, using your hands to bring it together when necessary. Gently knead the dough on a clean surface to ensure it is completely combined, before wrapping the dough in
cling film and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up a little.This is a good time to prepare the Pineapple Jam (instructions below). - Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 180°C (160°C for fan-assisted ovens, Gas Mark 4 or 350°F). After 30 minutes, remove your dough from the fridge. Grease a 12-hole cup bun tray with a little butter/margarine and set aside.
- Roll your dough to about 5mm (⅓ inch) thick, and using a round cutter which is a little bigger than the cups on your bun tray, cut 12 circles. Carefully transfer each circle to your pre-greased tray, gently ensuring no air is caught underneath each and press the bottom and edges into place.
- Prick a few holes into the bottom of each pastry cup before lining them (I used a paper cupcake case for lining) and filling with some
baking beans . Bake for about 15 minutes, remove thebaking beans and bake for a further 5 minutes, until the pastry cases are golden in colour. Allow to cool a little before adding the fillings.
For the Jam
- Drain the juice from your tinned pineapple into a small saucepan. Add the sugar to the saucepan. Roughly chop the pineapple slices before adding them to the saucepan.
- Bring the mixture to a boil and allow it to boil for 20-30 minutes, watching closely and stirring often. After that time, it will still be slightly syrupy, but the pineapple will have darkened in colour.
- Transfer the jam to a sterilised jar (or allow to cool for a while before transferring to a saleable plastic container).* Please note this is considered an "easy jam" recipe and won't set quite the same as shop-bought jam. And unless stored in a sterilised jar, it should only be kept for a few days.
- Allow to cool completely before using in Pineapple Tarts. Spoon a heaped teaspoon of jam into each pastry casing.
For the Cream Filling
- In a large bowl, whisk the cream and
icing sugar . If using an electric whisk, stop just before you think you have whisked enough - it's very easy to over-whisk cream with an electric whisk. - Transfer the cream to a piping bag with a large circular opening (or simply cut a few centimetres up a disposable piping bag) and pipe about a ping-pong ball amount of cream onto the top of each jam-filled pastry casing. Alternatively, simply spoon on the cream. Place into the fridge whilst you prepare the icing.* It is very important to leave a little gap between the cream and pastry (enough to be able to see the jam underneath). This allows the icing to pool and not overflow the edges.
For the Yellow Icing
- In a bowl, mix the
icing sugar with the water, adding a little at a time. You want a just-pourable consistency. Add the yellow food colouring to create your desired shade. Gel food colouring is preferable, but just watch the consistency of your icing if you are using a different kind of food colouring. - Starting with just a teaspoon, pour a little icing on top of the cream. After it has started to run down the cream, you can see where more is required and simply pour a little more into those places.
- Allow the icing to set before serving.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
All my recipes are developed using a digital scale and the metric system (grams and millilitres). Cup measurements are available as a conversion but these, unfortunately, won't always be as accurate. For best results, I always recommend baking with a digital scale.
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