Ingredients
- 1 pineapple, top broken off by hand
- 50g butter, soft
- 50g caster sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 50g almond meal
- 25g plain flour
- 2 sheets puff pastry
- 250g sugar
- 120ml water
- 3 star anise
- 1 vanilla pod, split in half lengthways
Method
Preheat oven to 200C.
Place pineapple on a baking tray and bake for one to two hours or until skin is a very dark brown and pineapple has started to soften. Turn over a few times during cooking. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Turn oven to 175C. Meanwhile, beat butter and sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy, scrape down the sides to incorporate mix evenly. Add egg yolk and mix well. Fold through almond meal and flour until combined. Reserve.
Cut puff pastry into six 12cm wide discs. Spread almond mixture onto pastry discs evenly with a palette knife, making sure to leave a 1cm rim around the outside free of mixture. Place on baking paper on a baking tray in fridge.
Remove skin from pineapple with a sharp knife. Cut into quarters lengthways and remove the core. Put on chopping board and slice into thin pieces (about 5cm long). Arrange on top of puff pasty discs in a circular pattern. Be careful to overlap each piece and to only go to the edge of the mixture, not the edge of the pastry as this will shrink once cooked. Bake in the oven until pastry is golden and pineapple has browned a little on the edges. Approx 15 minutes.
When tarts are cooking, place remaining ingredients in a saucepan and stir to dissolve sugar. Bring to the boil, brush down saucepan sides with a water-soaked pastry brush to prevent sugar crystallising. Continue to boil until syrup has thickened, approximately 10 minutes. Remove tarts from the oven and place on plates. Brush tarts with glaze and serve with coconut ice-cream or sorbet.
Tip
Jelly made from fresh pineapple will not set as the fruit contains the enzyme bromelain that breaks down protein and gelatine. Bromelain is destroyed by heat, so cooked and canned pineapple can be used to make jelly.
