Indonesian Pineapple Tart Cookies (Nue Nastar)

Ok, these came out ok. Ok. Well, ok, not ok, but fine. This is fine.

From Best-Ever Pineapple Cookies

Ingredients:

3 sticks butter (350 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 1/2 oz (100 g) sweetened condensed milk
2 egg yolks
18 oz (500 g) all-purpose flour or plain flour

Pineapple Filling:

2 whole pineapples (8 lbs / 3 1/2 kg) or 5 lbs (2 1/2 kg) pineapple flesh
1/2 tablespoon cloves, optional
1 – 1 1/2 cups (250 – 300 g) sugar, or to taste
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Egg Wash:

2 egg yolks
1/4 teaspoon condensed milk
1/2 teaspoon oil

Please use the link above for the original instruction and excellent photos, and search variations on this, it's quite a thing. Below is my experience making it,

My interpretation of this Indonesian treat is, you get a pineapple, chop and mush it up and cook it down until all the moisture is gone,add sugar and spices, and what is left is concentrated pineapple chewy candy, which gets a flaky dough coating, is eggwashed and baked as a special treat.

I used two big cans of pineapple bits and mashed as it reduced. It was a medium saucepan, half full. Over several hours, it reduces to half an inch of concentrated magic. You keep it bubbling enough that you can see water vapor coming up, stir very often.

One little sample pea-sized pinch of the cooled filling product equals about half a ring or a big chunk of normal canned pineapple, and it explodes with flavor. That is what this is all about. Holy mackerel does it explode with flavor.

Lacking a blender, I used a potato masher and mashed and mashed and mashed as it cooked to get it to applesauce-like texture.

Boiled it to get the water level down along with about 20 cloves, then lowered heat, added 1.5 cups sugar and juice of two limes, and further simmered for another 45 minutes or so until it becomes an orange color.

Also added a dash of vanilla and orange extract, some garam masala, cinnamon and a bit of cayenne, also about a teaspoon of citric acid powder for extra super sour, and MSG. Let it cool off, fish out the cloves then put in the refrigerator to set.

Ugh. You really, really need to reduce this down to no moisture. I thought I had, and chilled the mixture, but it wasn't tight enough to roll into balls, still. So, back on the stove for another half hour until I could see no water vapor coming off, and back into the fridge. I started this recipe nearly 4 hours ago :(

It occurs to me in hindsight, that rather than fighting the stove burner that only works on high for a long, long reduction, that perhaps next time, use a slow cooker with the lid off overnight.

Once cool, it's pretty sticky, so you roll them out into little garbanzo sized balls, then pinch dough around them and bake on 330 for 20 minutes or so. See the original link above for process details. If you google Nastar images, there are a variety of cute presentations. Some people used sprigs of rosemary to make little pineapple leaves coming out of the top. Some made into rolls and cut apart. I'm going to try the OP's technique.

Lacking a mixer, creaming together the butter and condensed milk and slowly adding flour was a challenge. I resorted to the primary cooking tools of wooden spoon and human hands, which was messy but hey, got the job done.

Aarrrgh these things are tricky. This is one of those you should learn from your mom, not from the internet, but I did get my first batch into the oven this morning. These will not win pretty awards, but I'm still excited to taste the finished product.

OK, screw everything about this recipe. These are the fussiest damn things I've ever made, and that's saying something. I did get better technique as I went, making the dough wrapper bigger than needed, then pulling off bits to keep it sealed up. These better be good. Also found that between batches putting the filling in the freezer kept it firmer.

So, the taste!

.... .    .   . ...  they're..  . .   .... . frickin.... Pop Tarts. Seriously.

The pastry tastes like Pop Tarts. My heavy hand and thick wrap did not help. Second batch was a little thinner and better. They're really GOOD Pop Tarts, don't get me wrong. But holy hell the amount of work here.

Yeah. Well.

Ok, to wrap up, I'd say the super star here is the reduced pineapple filling. FOR SOMETHING ELSE. It's absolutely divine and I will make THAT part again, for something.

Ok, third batch. I'm feeling pretty proud as my tupperware container fills with these. They are super good. What I need is to get somebody else to make them and to give me a container full of them. Maybe I'll edit this after I hand them out and munch on them for a while. If I saw a table full of home made cookies, I would reach for these right away.

Was supposed to get 100 out of this, I got about 40. Pretty sure this was my crummy technique. I did at the end, figure out that freezing the filling almost solid really helped, and I bet I didn't get the butter level right in the dough.

Still have half the filling left over, I will freeze it and incorporate it into something more fun in the future.

We will chalk this up as a semi success semi failure. Moving on to real life.