Dazephyr

“It must be the oven. It’s over 20 years old at Almond’s place.” Butter proclaimed loudly.

“Yes, yes. It wasn’t hot enough and the heat was uneven.” Cinnamon nodded vehemently in agreement.

“Bah.” Dough snorted. “Poor cooks make all sorts of excuses.”

We were gathered at Dough’s place to make a fresh batch of pineapple tarts for Chinese New Year after the catastrophic failure the previous weekend. Butter and Cinnamon’s attempt in Almond’s kitchen yielded choice reviews like ‘mothball flavoured’ and ‘tastes like old furniture’ from the family’s food critics. The whole afternoon’s efforts were unceremoniously fed to the garbage bin. Today, they were determined to redeem themselves under the tutelage of Dough, the Grandmistress and Source of All Things Delicious. I was just the extra labour.

In case you’ve noticed, the characters in this account are named after cookie ingredients. This is to make it easier to read than venturing into the maze of titles and honorifics of extended families. Plus, anonymity, of course.

“Flip to the folded page.” Dough commanded with an air of authority while gesturing to her Secret Manual of Recipes.

A notebook harkening back to the days of colonial rule, its cover bore a faded picture of Her Majesty’s coronation in 1957. It was a veritable piece of history in itself. Inside, its yellowed pages cradled decades of delicately scribbled notes and aged tear-outs of various recipes, a culinary treasure trove for home cooks.

I gingerly thumbed through to the section on pineapple tarts, careful not to damage any of the crumbling pages.

“One pound of flour and one stick of butter for the dough.”

“Wait, what? You told us 12 ounces of flour!” Butter exclaimed. “No wonder the tarts were horrible.”

“Really? You must have misheard,” Dough replied with aplomb. “Anyway, the real magic is in the way you mix the butter in”.

There was a quiet murmuring of agreement. No one else could quite replicate the way Dough’s fingers deftly but lightly kneaded the large chunks of butter into the flour.

“You pinch the butter into the flour gently; there shouldn’t be much force.” Dough explained sagely. “The butter chunks need to be larger or it will melt before you mix it in and make everything lumpy.”

I could almost hear her channel her inner Yoda. Patience you must have, my young padawan.

Once the dough was ready, the rest of the process was pretty straightforward. Pinch out a chunk of dough and flatten it into a cone. The size should appropriate to the balls of pineapple paste to avoid overly large or overly thick pastry for just the right texture.

Pro tip – keep a damp cloth over the dough to keep it moist when working multiple batches.

Insert the ball of pineapple paste and gently stretch the sides to enclose the paste and roll it into a ball.

Long, thin fingers make for better pinching and rolling.

Repeat until the tray is full, making sure each ball is of similar size. Easy peasy, as long as you’re consistent. (Which unfortunately, we weren’t. But as they say, people come in all shapes and sizes. So do tarts.)

Finally, add a small piece of clove, paint on a layer of egg yolk, and they’re ready for the oven! On to the second batch while this tray bakes!

I have an apple, I have pineapple. Ah. Apple Pineapple Tart!

The rest of the session went by in a blur, all of us too engrossed in our task to say much. 25 minutes later, we were greeted by an aromatic scent and a mouth-watering sight.

The literal fruits of our labour.

We knew from sight and smell that this was baked to perfection. All that was left was to put it in our mouths and relish the texture of buttery smooth pastry melting on our tongues and the sweetness of the pineapple jam that followed. Mmm…

“I’ve figured it out. Must be the paste!” Butter had her eureka moment at last. “The green pineapples were too raw!”

A loud snort echoed from the depths of the kitchen.