Chinese New Year Baking – Pineapple Jam

Hello!

Once again history has repeat itself, I made the cookies less than 1 week away from Chinese New Year. It’s true, I never learn. Plus I have a broken thumb now (Cut from holding the ssuper sharp food processor blade), which makes things harder.

Anyway, I did this last year but ddin’t get to blog about it because by the time I wanted to, it is after CNY already, this year, I needed to put it up, especially when i have fresh memories of it (Just made the jam 2 days ago)

So here we go!

I used reference from Wendy’s blog and followed it quite closely. Last year I made 5 pineapples but I didn’t weigh it. This year, I used 6 pineapples but they were quite small. They were just about 4kgs after peeling. I only ended with close to 2kg of paste.

So, pineapple jam obviously needed pineapples. I used Moris Pineapple, which is the regular pineapple, and unripen ones. The difference this and last year was, the ripeness of the pineapple. The ones I used were less ripe, it had abit more tartness and zing to it after cooking. Whereas, this year, some of the pineapples were near ripe, it was sweeter and less fibrous but it doesn’t make that much of different for me. Tasted good both ways.

I bought them whole with skin, but some markets do peel them for you. Weird, I actually find peeling pineapples (and removing the eyes) therapeutic.. in fact, the hardest part of making this pineapple jam is, peeling and preping them

Step 1-2 : After you peel, cut into slices and small slices. I used 2 types of juicer and blender for this part. This way, I didn’t need to add any water while blending it. The first juicer (with some funky technology) extracts the juice while keeping the fibre intact, once it is extracted, I used a blender to make it finer. If you are just using blender, you may need to add some water

Step 3: Pour into a pot after each blend, I find that even half way through, you can still add blended pineapple into the pot and cook them together. Put it in a wide surface pan so the water evaporates faster. At this stage, it;s only pineapple and 1 cinnamon stick. Don’t need to stir frequently, just every 5 minutes, give it a stir.

Step 4: You would see the bubbles floating up (like scum) and it will start to brown a little. Then, add sugar. Same thing, stir every 5 minutes, use a wide surface pan, on medium low heat. Cook till the water has evaporated 90% and the colour is dark golden brown.

This is not done yet. You can see the paste is still quite wet and more yellow in colour. Just give a little patience and cook it longer.

Last year, my pineapple jam was abit wet and I was worried that it wouldnt last long (but it finished before it could have a change to mold haha) This year, I added some gula melaka and cooked it longer. It’s definitely more dry this time and easier to roll into balls.

Here is my recipe.

CNY Baking - Pineapple Jam

 

Print

Ingredients

• 6 Morris Pineapples (after peeling, weighed about 4kgs)
• 130g gula melaka, crushed
• 600g caster sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick

Instructions

1. Peel and remove the eyes from the pineapple. Keep the core. Slice into smaller pieces so its easier to blend.
2. Blend it so its fine (may need to add some water if the pineapple is very very unripe)
3. Cook in a wide-surface pan on medium high heat till it becomes porridge-y like and slightly golden, stirring every 5 minutes or so. Add in sugar, gula melaka and cinnamon stick. Reduce heat to medium-low
4. Fold / stir every 5 minutes making sure it doesnt burn at the bottom. Once it is golden brown and not wet, remove from heat and let it cool.
5. Roll into balls or keep in container for spreads etc

Wordpress Recipe Plugin by EasyRecipe

3.2.1275

So from this batch, I yield 2kgs of pineapple jam, rolled them into 8-10g each ball and had about 200 pcs balls. So I’m going to make only 200 pcs of pineapple tart.

Will be posting the pineapple tart recipes tomorrow! 2 types!!