My father in law loves a pineapple tart so I thought it would be fun to make some for his birthday this year.
The recipe I used was from Baking With Granny. (As a side note, I had no idea pineapple tarts were a Scottish thing either!) Unsurprisingly mine are not as polished and photogenic as Amy's tarts. One could say my mine resembled certain lady body parts. . .
Perky!
Admittedly I was in a rush assembling my tarts but even with more time I don't believe mine would ever look that neat!
In terms of the baking the pastry was an absolute pain in the arse to work with, crumbling as soon as I looked at it never mind handle it. Every pastry case broke as I pressed them into the bun tins and needed squashing/patching back together. The dough felt more like a crumbly shortbread than a pastry. I had very low expectations for any of the cases holding together or even coming out of the tin successfully but I was thankfully proven wrong. They may have been a pain to make but they were so buttery and short, perfectly complementing the jam, soft cream and icing topping.
The "quick" pineapple jam was also a tasty success and for a change I managed to not overwhip cream for the filling!
Despite their somewhat rustic appearance I was delighted with my pineapple tarts. They were very tasty and I'm already thinking of other jam or curd combinations I could try. As a lover of all things lemon flavoured I think lemon curd would be a good shout.
Another consideration would be to reduce or entirely omit the icing sugar in the cream. It's lovely as is but I don't think it's particularly necessary when there's already sweet jam and icing in the bake, other than sweetened cream mimics the "mock cream" used in the shop bought pineapple tarts.
Well worth a try, but be prepared to get frustrated with crumbly pastry.
