Chinese New Year : Pineapple Cookie / Tart Recipe

Happy Chinese New Year 2104! Time really fly when I recall back how I spent my Chinese New Year first time away from my home country. Me and hubby was at Melbourne during last year CNY. Though we are at a western country, but the CNY atmosphere was not lacking compared back to Malaysia or I should say Melbourne had a merrier CNY celebration =)

Well, for CNY, pineapple tart / cookie it's has been a "must have' for me. Been making these cookies since I was in secondary school and revising the recipe to a perfect one. What is perfect pineapple cookie for me? A 'perfect' pineapple cookie for me is, it shall melt once put our mouth. So below is the recipe which would like to share with you during this festive season. I know it's kinda late to make cookies 2 days before the day, apologize for that. Hope you like this recipe!

Pineapple Tarts / Cookies

Ingredients:
(A)
250g magarine / butter
50g icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2 egg yolks
2 tbsp Ghee / pure cow butter (This is important)

(B)
400g plain flour
20g cornflour

(C) Pineapple Fillings (Boiled to thick)
500g chopped pineapple, strained
250g castor sugar
1/4 tsp pineapple essence
** Alternatively you can use ready made pineapple paste sell at baking shop.

Method
1. Beat (A) till creamy and slowly stir in (B).
2. Put in the dough in mould and press out pattern
3. Spread the pineapple filling (C) and roll up. Brush top with beaten egg.
Bake the cookie at 160 celcius for about 25 minutes.

Royal Selangor Pewter

Royal Selangor is a Malaysian pewter manufacturer and retailer, the largest of its type in the world. It is recognized as a Malaysian brand icon (wikipedia). A quick search from the internet, pewter is a mixture of 85%-99% of tin with several other minerals such as copper, antimony,silver and etc.

Royal Selangor was founded since year 1885 back in Malaysia and has been growing in the market since then over few family generations. I still remember during my year12 school (1995), I visited their learning center in Kuala Lumpur and learnt how pewter are actually made. The company still stand strong up today with its popularity of innovative design and fine piece of artwork on each pewter products.

From a traditional tankards, today this company offers various type of tableware and gifts and have appearance in worldwide market including Australia.  I have a chance to visit to one of it's retail outlet located at The Block Arcade, Melbourne. It has been quite some time since I last visited a Royal Selangor outlet especially when I moved to Melbourne. I'm delighted to see that they are having wide ranges of pewter made gifts. Being an Asian based background company, they even have the Chinese zodiac figurines for the Chinese New Year. I specially fancy on their teapots set which look awesome for me. Just share some of the products below which I personally found very unique.

Since Easter Day is one the way, perhaps you are thinking a special gift for your loved ones. Do drop by their outlet or browse for more products from their website (www.royalselangor.com). They have wide range of products range from teapots, christening gifts, gifts for children, drinkware, ornamental and many more!

Christening Mug - Teddy Bear's Picnic Collection

Limited Edition Miniature Figurine- Mini Tankard, Mini Jug, Mini Melon Teapot

Merry Go Round Music Box

CNY 2013 Reunion Dinner

This Chinese New Year 2013 will be my first year celebrating with my lovely husband. It's also the first time for me celebrating CNY at abroad. I really miss the moment when we are celebrating CNY back in Kuala Lumpur with my family and my beloved Shih Tzu, Mickey.

It's been a tradition for every Chinese family that there must be a REUNION dinner on the CNY eve. Though we are Melbourne, we still keep the tradition going on and week before I have been to the Asian wet market to stock up some fresh ingredients for the dinner. We are considered lucky staying in Melbourne, a city filled with lots of Asian. Therefore, it's not a problem for us to get the Chinese cooking stuff. Most pleasing of all is we managed to get some CNY cookies from Malaysia, at least a little relief for our homesickness to hometown CNY snacks and CNY atmosphere.

 

Reunion Dinner Menu (clockwise): Roast duck, braised beef brisket, fresh scallops with broccoli, mushroom with sea cucumber & fish paste.

CNY Cookie from Malaysia

Snake Year 2013

Happy Chinese New Year 2013 to everyone! 

This year will be my first time spending my Chinese New Year at overseas (Melbourne) with my husband. Although the celebration in Melbourne is not as merry as back in Kuala Lumpur, but still it's not that bad. There are still alot of Chinese New Year activities around the city. We still can get some our favourite Chinese New Year cookies in Melbourne and manage to catch a glimpse of Lion Dance at Crown Casino too. What a blessing! :)

During times in Melbourne, we learnt to appreciate what we had. We really miss the family gathering that we used to have during Chinese New Year, collect ang pow, eating Chinese New Year snacks (mandarins, bak kwa, cookies & yee sang) and a little gambling sessions with our cousins. Nevertheless, it always not too late. We start doing something to appreciate people around us. Wish everyone have a blessed New Year ahead. God bless you!