Taiwanese pineapple cakes are buttery, light, and melt-in-the-mouth.
Made from shortcrust pastry filled with homemade pineapple jam or pineapple paste.


 

What is Taiwanese pineapple cakes?

Taiwanese pineapple cakes (鳳梨酥) are more of a 'pie' than cakes actually.

The pastry that encased pineapple jam or pineapple paste are buttery, crumbly and nothing like cake texture.

As for taste and texture, Taiwanese pineapple cakes are no different to pineapple tarts.

The only noticeable difference is, Taiwanese pineapple cakes are baked in a square (rectangular)casings, whereby, the other pineapple tarts are shaped into a ball, roll up to wrap pineapple jam or baked as open face cookies.

Also,worth to mentioned that pieces of winter melon are added to pineapple paste or pineapple jam in making Taiwanese pineapple cakes!

How to bake Taiwanese Pineapple Cakes?

A list of ingredients and method can be found at the end of this post.

However, I will explain in detail with the photos below.

Do note that I will be highlighting through out this post of things "not' to do when baking Taiwanese pineapple cakes.
Learn from my mistakes :)

Step 1 : Ingredients for Taiwanese pineapple cakes

Butter must be at room temperature.

Take butter out of the fridge at least 3 hours prior (or overnight in winter)

Sieve icing sugar.


Cream butter with icing sugar until pale and creamy.


Add egg yolk.


Sieve plain flour, corn flour and baking powder at least twice.
Mix into the mixing bowl. I used Kenwood K beater, all through out the process.

Step 2 : Pineapple paste and dough

Mix with K-beater on low speed until dough comes together.


Task to prepare ahead of time, weigh and ball up pineapple paste.

Step 3: How to make pineapple cakes

I was experimenting using 2 types of mould; rectangular and square.
Original Taiwanese pineapple cakes comes in square shape.

The weight of pineapple paste and dough are indicated in the notes in the recipe card below.

The photo above showing the progressive steps:
1) Place pineapple paste ball onto the flatten dough
2) Wrap paste with dough.
3) Place into the mould, and press them into the mould gently.



Point to note here: just fill up about 3/4 full. The dough has baking powder and it will rise above the mould rim and they are not pretty to look at!!

What are the mould sizes?

These are the two sizes that I was experimenting with.
These moulds were given to me, but I am sure if you are from Malaysia or Singapore,you may be able to get them in your baking shops.

I much prefer to use the rectangular mould. The bake was consistent all through out.

I may have to adjust the baking temperature with the square mould.
The top and bottom were getting darker brown in colour (read as nearly burnt!!) but the sides are still pale and some were with under baked dough.

One more thing to remember, do not try to un-mould once it is out of the oven!
I did and it broke.

Best to leave the pineapple cake in the mould for at least 10 minutes before un-moulding.

How to keep Taiwanese pineapple cakes?

You can pack these cakes individually and keep in an air tight container.

How long can I keep these pineapple cakes?

If you are using homemade pineapple jam or paste, it best to consume within 3 weeks of baking.
We usually do not add any preservatives in our homemade jam, hence the shelf life is shorter, and we usually store our cookies at room temperature.
This is an ideal environment for the nasties to grow.

And if you use store-bought pineapple paste, then the shelf life is slightly longer (max another month)



And with that I end this post with "Gong Xi Fa Cai" to all my readers.
Have a great Lunar New Year!!!