Pineapple Cake: Challenging Foodies to the Highest Level

1. Ingredients for filling: Winter melon (peeled and seeded) 900g pineapple (peeled) 450g granulated sugar 60g maltose 60g Peel the pineapple and cut it into as small cubes as possible.

2. Wrap the sliced pineapple cubes in gauze and squeeze out the pineapple juice.

3. After squeezing the juice, place the diced pineapple on a cutting board and chop it into a paste with a knife. Don't throw away the squeezed pineapple juice, keep it for later use.

4. Peel and seed the winter melon according to the above method, boil water in a pot, add the winter melon, and cook for about 15 minutes until it is completely cooked. To check if the winter melon is ripe is to see if it has turned transparent.

5. After cooking, quickly put the winter melon chunks into cold water.

6. After the winter melon cools down, wrap it with gauze and squeeze out the water. At this point, the water in the winter melon can be discarded, leaving only the winter melon paste.

7. Put pineapple juice, granulated sugar, and maltose into a wok, bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat and stir continuously until the sugar is completely dissolved.

8. Pour the winter melon and pineapple into the pot.

At this point, turn down the heat and stir fry slowly. As you stir fry, the water in the pot will gradually decrease, and the pineapple filling will take shape. Let it cool down for later use.

10. Crispy pastry ingredients: 90g low gluten flour, 35g whole milk powder, 75g butter, 25g eggs, 20g sugar powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt. Prepare the filling for the pineapple cake, and the next step is to make the puff pastry. After the butter softens at room temperature, add sugar powder and salt, beat with an egg beater, add egg mixture, and beat until completely blended, forming a feather like texture.

11. Then add low gluten flour and milk powder.

12. Use a scraper to mix the flour and butter thoroughly.

13. Mix until there is no dry powder, and the puff pastry dough is ready. The prepared dough is moist but not sticky to the hands.

The puff pastry dough is now ready, and the next step is to wrap pineapple cakes. First, weigh the filling and puff pastry. The filling and puff pastry for pineapple cakes are weighed in a ratio of 2:3. The pineapple cakes I made are 30g each, so I weighed 12 grams of puff pastry and 18 grams of pineapple filling. Look, the amount of puff pastry is smaller than the amount of pineapple filling. In the true sense, pineapple cakes have thin skin and large filling, but this is very challenging for our packaging workers!

15. Flatten the dough with your hands and place a piece of pineapple filling on top.

16. Use your thumb to push the puff pastry slowly around the filling. The technique is similar to the Cantonese mooncakes I made before.

17. Lay baking paper on the baking tray, place the prepared pineapple cakes on the baking paper, and shape them using a mold.

18. Use this method to make other pineapple cakes. Put it in the oven at 175 degrees Celsius for about 15 minutes, and bake until the surface turns golden brown. After being taken out and cooled, it can be demolded. After demolding and cooling, seal and let it sit for 4 hours before consumption for a better taste. This is similar to the principle of mooncakes returning oil, warming up the taste will improve the texture.