Another Baking Blitz: Pineapple Rolls

It's that time of the year again - time for another baking and cooking marathon. Christmas has come and gone. So have Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. We're already at end of the first month of twenty-ten so what other major festivals will we be celebrating, you ask?! Valentines? No, no, no. As romantic as we are at hearts, D and I don't celebrate V-Day because we think it's just another one of those marketing ploy to get people to spend unnecessary money (alright, we're cheap!). But 14th February 2010 IS a very special day that we will be celebrating - not Valentines (didn't I just tell you that?!) but
Chinese New Year!

The first day of Chinese lunar year coincides with Valentine's day this year. Worldwide, almost 2 billion ethnic Chinese will be celebrating this highly auspicious festival. China and Asian countries with large Chinese population like Malaysia and Singapore or with expanded Chinese culture like Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand are already busy gearing up for this important festival which actually runs for a full 15 days. When I was growing up, the preparations for Chinese New Year would start at least a month prior to the big day.  Mum would be in a baking frenzy, rushing against time to fill the orders for CNY cookies and cakes that kept pouring in. We'd all help out after school in the evenings, carefully placing slivered almonds on her prized-but-heavily-guarded-recipe almond cookies (those are the best! I've not come across any other better-tasting almond cookies than mum's so far. Seriously!), spooning tiny balls of luscious home-made pineapple jams onto her jam tarts, picked-and-placed little glazed cherry bits on to her melting-moment cookies, brushing the egg-wash on her cashew cookies and sometimes, on one of those rare occasions, I'd get to brush mum's fruitcakes with brandy. Not a menial or insignificant task, mind you! Afterall, fruitcakes were, and still is, mum's baby....her all-time best seller! Unfortunately, with the family geographically spread apart today and blame it on Governor Schwarzeneggar who has yet to declare CNY a public holiday for California, CNY has been quite uneventful in my household for the past decade. In fact, the last time I truly celebrated CNY on a grand scale was back in Malaysia eleven years ago. Night markets popping up everywhere during the month leading up to CNY, just like mushrooms after a rainy day, offering all kinds of CNY goodies - poultry, seafood and fresh vegetables waiting to be turned into elaborate CNY delicacies on one side, all kinds of local street food on another, intoxicating the air with delicious aroma and out of nowhere, you'd see make-shift tents vendors had put up for an amalgam of CNY products: from decorative items like bright red Chinese lanterns, CNY banners and lots of those tassle-y thingies (I don't know what they're called) to decorate your home to your hearts' content, to specialty plants like kumquats, lucky-bamboos, golden-money and a myriad of vibrant colorful flowers to adorn and perfume your entire house, down to even shoes, clothing, accessories and everything you'd need to create that perfect look for Chinese New Year! Despite the large Asian population here in the Bay Area, nothing can match the festive Chinese New Year atmosphere back in Malaysia. So, short of making a trip home every year to get my CNY-fix, I'm attempting to recreate some of the wonderful CNY memories from my childhood and hoping to start some family traditions that we can sustain down the road over here in US of A.

Home-made Pineapple Jam (for CNY Pineapple Rolls.....and equally great for your morning toasts!)
Ingredients:
1 ripe pineapple (not overly ripe), grated (yields approx. 4-6 cups)
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
8 whole cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
1 star anise
1/4 tsp salt

Method:
1. De-skin and cut pineapple into long strips (half, then quarter the fruit vertically)
2. Grate pineapple strips using a grater - should yield ~ 4-6 cups; separate pulp from the juice.
3. Place grated pulp in a heavy-based pot over medium heat.
4. Add lemon juice, sugar, salt and all the spices
5. Bring to boil, then allow to simmer on low heat until the liquid evaporates and jam thickens. Patience required! This will take ~ 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
6. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
7. Shape into little oval-shaped balls (~ 1/2" long)

Pineapple Rolls

Mum's pineapple tarts were my favorite - a spoonful of the delightful home-made pineapple jam atop buttery, flaky, melt-in-your-mouth pastry. This is a rendition of a similar tart, but made in a roll form.

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cornstarch
2 sticks butter, room temp.
2/3 cups powdered sugar
2 egg yolks
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp pineapple essence (optional)
1/4 tsp + extra sprinkle of salt

For egg-wash: beat together 1 egg and 1 Tbs water.
*makes ~ 40-50 pineapple rolls.
Method:
Preheat over to 350˚F. Grease and flour baking trays
1. Sift together flour, cornstarch and salt
2. Cream butter and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy, ~ 2 minutes
3. Add in egg yolks, one at a time.
4. Add vanilla extract
5. With the mixer on low speed, add in dry ingredients until incorporated. Do not overmix.
6. The original recipe calls for the use of a special mould to pipe the pastry into strips. In lieu of the mould, roll the dough into a rectangle on a lightly floured surface, around 1/4" thick, then start cutting 1"-wide, 3"-long strips.
*7. Place a pineapple jam ball into one end and roll up the pastry to enclose the jam. Cut off excess dough. Using a butter knife, make tiny horizontal lines on top of the roll.

8. Place the pasty-jam roll on to the prepared trays. Brush the tops with the prepared egg-wash.
9. Bake on center rack for ~ 12 minutes or until golden.
10. Transfer to cooling racks.

*Alternatively, you can opt to go for the simpler method of just shaping the pastry into tiny ~1/2" rounds, place the jam balls in the middle, enclose the jam and roll into balls.

Recipe adapted from "At Home with Amy Beh"; adjusted and converted to US measurements by Jencrafted