Light and crisp salted egg yolk cookies that are suitable for Chinese New Year celebrations.…
Golden Salted Egg Yolk Pineapple Tarts 黄金咸蛋黄黄梨酥
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These salted yolk pineapple tarts adds local flavor for Chinese New Year celebration.
They have a delicate, melt-in-mouth texture, with a subtle salted egg yolk taste.
You can also make them into bite-size pineapple tarts, so you can pop the entire tart into your mouth! Enjoy!
Pineapple tarts have to be one of our favourite pastries or snacks for Chinese New Year in Singapore!
These golden salted egg yolk pineapple tarts add a modern twist to our Chinese New Year snacks!
若想阅读中文版本,请在网页的右边 “Google Translate” 点击选择 中文简体 (Chinese Simplified)或 繁体 (Chinese Traditional) 翻译。可能食谱读起来会怪怪的,所以如果有疑问都可以问哦!
What Are Pineapple Tarts?
I remember when I was a child, my favourite treats during Chinese New Year would be seeing bottles and bottles of bite-sized pastries and snacks on the coffee table for visitors.
Do you love pineapple tarts too? I super, super love pineapple tarts. These little tarts are usually made using butter, egg yolk, flour, and occasionally corn starch and milk powder. From its ingredient list, you’ll know that this is a rich, buttery and tender pastry!
The traditional open pineapple tarts, featuring a buttery dough base topped with cooked down pineapple jam, are most commonly seen during those time. It was only in recent years that these round pineapple tarts gotten its popularity.
And when we talk about the cooked pineapple jam – it must be one of the challenging item to make for Chinese New Year pastries. Firstly, to make the pineapple jam, we need to select good pineapples for the best taste. While some prefer to use all ripe pineapples, some would prefer to have a certain ratio mix of ripe and slightly unripe pineapples.
The jam is then made by slowly reducing and caramelizing fresh, grated pineapple, mixed with sugar and spices like the cinnamon, star anise and cloves.
Due to the work involved in making homemade pineapple jam, we can also commonly find ready made pineapple jam from baking supplies stores! For this recipe, I am using store bought jam.
So, what makes a good pineapple tart? For myself, open tarts should have a buttery dough base that is firm to bite but gives way to a light and slightly crisp texture. I also like the pineapple jam to have a mix of tangy sweet taste. As for these round enclosed tarts, I like them to have the melt-in-mouth texture, with a good balance of dough to jam.
How Do These Salted Yolk Pineapple Tarts Taste Like?
This year, I saw this salted egg yolk pineapple tart, shared by Zoe on a Facebook group I am in. It sounds interesting, and since my husband loves salted egg yolk, I thought of trying it out.
I was glad I did!
These golden salted yolk pineapple tarts have a super delicate, melt-in-mouth texture, with a subtle salted egg yolk taste. The dough may feel a little sandy to some. While the pastry dough is stable enough for the tarts to be stacked in containers, do take note that these pineapple tarts are quite soft and gives way easily! So I’ll recommend to make them really bite-size, where you can pop the entire tart into your mouth.
The pineapple tarts also taste better the next day, so be sure to stack them into cookie containers and enjoy them the day after baking!
>> MORE CHINESE NEW YEAR COOKIE RECIPES:
How To Make The Salted Yolk Pineapple Tarts?
First, the salted yolk needs preparation in advance. The salted yolk used in the pastry dough will be cooked before hand. We can either steam or bake for about 15 mins. After letting the salted yolks cool for a while, till it’s just warm for handling, press them through a metal sieve to get to a “powder” consistency. Set aside the salted yolk powder to cool till use.
In between the wait for the salted yolk, roll the pineapple paste into balls. You can also roll the pineapple paste the night before, store it in airtight container in the fridge, with cling wrap in between the layers of stacked pineapple balls, so that they do not stick to each other.
As for the pastry dough, it uses the basic creaming method, where softened butter is beaten together with icing sugar till pale, before adding in the dry ingredients, along with the salted yolk.
The dough would be okay for wrapping immediately. However I prefer to store it wrapped in fridge for about 15 mins, as I find it easier to handle that way.

Golden Salted Egg Yolk Pineapple Tarts 黄金咸蛋黄黄梨酥
- Prep Time: 90 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 110 minutes
- Yield: 72 Enclosed Tarts 1x
Description
These salted yolk pineapple tarts are great for Chinese New Year celebration. They have a delicate, melt-in-mouth texture, with a subtle salted egg yolk taste. You can also make them into bite-size pineapple tarts, so you can pop the entire tart into your mouth! Enjoy!
Ingredients
Pastry
- 200 g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
- 80 g icing sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 100 g salted egg yolks (about 7–9 pcs)
- 260 g plain flour
- 80 g cornstarch
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
Egg Wash
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tsp milk
Filling
- 720 g pineapple jam filling, (homemade or store bought)
Decoration
- Edible gold leaf (optional)
Instructions
Prep Work
- Prepare the salted egg yolks by steaming them over medium-high heat for 15mins. Let them cool slightly, till warm to touch. Press the salted egg yolks through a metal sieve. Discard large pieces which cannot go through the sieve. Ensure the weight of the salted yolk is about 100g.
- Prepare the pineapple jam filling by rolling them into balls of 10g* each. Place into a large container and cover each layer with cling wrap to prevent sticking. Chill in fridge till ready to be used.
- Also prepare the egg wash by whisking the yolk and milk together. Strain the mixture. Cling wrap and place in fridge till ready to be used.
Pastry
- Beat the softened butter and icing sugar using a whisk or mixer, until well combined and creamy. This should take about 1 minute. Take note to not over-beat the mixture.
- Add in vanilla extract and combine.
- Sift flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt into the mixture above. Add in grated salted yolk.
- Mix the ingredients into a dough using a spatula. I use a folding, cutting motion while rotating the bowl. You may need to use your hand to knead gently to make it into a soft and pliable dough. You do not need to rest the dough; however I cling wrap and chilled the dough for 15 mins for better handling.
Wrapping
- Preheat your oven to 160C. Line baking tray with baking paper. Remove pineapple jam balls from the fridge.
- Weigh your pastry dough to 10g each. Roll them into balls.
- Flatten the dough slightly. Place pineapple jam in the middle and bring the edges of the dough together. Press slightly at the edges to seal. Roll between your palms lightly to shape it into a round ball.
- Repeat for remaining dough and place the rolled tarts on lined baking tray.
- Using a brush, egg wash the pineapple tarts on the top surface. Always press out excess egg wash against side of the small bowl before applying onto the rolled tarts – less is always better, as you can always add on more egg wash. Do not let the egg wash drip down as it may burn the bottom of the tarts during baking.
- Bake for about 20 mins, or until the egg wash is light golden brown in color.
- Once baked, cool in the baking tray for 10 mins before transferring to wire rack to cool completely. Decorate with edible gold leaf before storing in airtight container.
Decorate
- To apply gold leaf, cool the tarts completely. Using a tweezer, lift up a small portion of the gold leaf gently, and place onto the top of the tart. Using a small brush, pat down the gold leaf to help it adhere. Be careful because the gold leaf is very light weight and can stick to our fingers or work surface.
Equipment

Notes
1 salted egg yolk is about 10g-15g, so we can use about 7-9 salted egg yolks. You may need more if the weight of the yolk is lighter. You can also get packed salted yolks, so you do not need to separate yourself.
For easier making of the tarts, prepare pastry dough the day before; roll out the pineapple jam balls the day before too. On day of baking, simply assemble and bake.
The size of these pineapple tarts is a little bigger. As these pineapple tarts can be quite crumbly due to the salted egg yolks, and you’d like to pop 1 pineapple tart into your mouth at 1 time, reduce the amount of the paste and dough for each tart: about 8g dough and 8g pineapple paste.
Recipe originally from BakeForHappyKids, with adaptations of method and tips.
- Category: Dessert, Snack
- Cuisine: Chinese
Keywords: Pineapple Tarts
Hi Cherie, I just love anything with salted egg yolk so this is my definitely must try recipe since I had most ingredients in hand. I made these salted egg pineapple tarts yesterday and i got to say it very delicious. Love that it melt in your mouth, not in your hand. Hehe…but can you share how did you get them to bake into beautiful balls without losing it’s shape? Mine lost it’s ball shape and became like a melted pyramid shape instead.
★★★★★
Hello there Nadia!
So sorry for my late reply as I was trying to recover from a bad gastric flu earlier this week!
Thanks for the rating, appreciate much 😉 For me, I find it easier to bake these pineapple balls when the pineapple paste is rolled and stored in the refrigerator overnight. The pineapple paste would firm up in the fridge, and makes the wrapping much easier. Also, while baking, the soft pastry will then take on the shape of the pineapple paste as it bakes. Hope this helps!
– Cherie (Sorry I am replying from another username because I am having some troubles with the login! lol)
Thank you for your tips Cherie. I’ve made it for the 2nd time and the shape did hold itself perfectly. 🙂 These salted egg yolk pineapple tart sure is irresistible.
Good morning Cherie, I hv been making pineapple tarts from another recipe n it has been a popular recipe with my frens n relatives. But all has been changed since I chanced upon your recipe. Response were like “super good n prefer tis than the last baked. I thank you very much for sharing your recipe.
★★★★★
Hello there! 🙂 Thank you for your comment. And so sorry I missed out on your comment. Hope you are making these pineapple tarts this year too! 🙂
Hi, these look so yummy! May I know what brand is your all purpose flour and the protein? Thank you 🙂
Hi Debbie! Yes they are! 🙂 They are crumbly with slightly melt-in-mouth texture. In fact we sold these pineapple tarts under my cake studio during CNY this year and they were really popular! Be careful as they are quite “fragile” while picking up / biting into them. I am using Prima unbleached plain flour 🙂
Hi Cherie can i ask if i wish to omit the salted egg york do i have to substitute it with anything else?
Thank you!
Hi there Rachel! Apologies for my late reply! You will have to adjust the amount of flour if you want to omit the salted egg yolk. Would you like to try these open tarts instead? https://cherienoms.com/2020/01/pineapple-tarts-2015.html
Thank you for replying Cherie! By adjusting the flour do you mean a 1 to 1 substitution with the weight of the salted york?
Hi Rachel! It might not be a 1:1 substitute of the flour:salted yolk, as salted yolk has some oil in them. If you substitute 1:1 ratio, the pastry when baked may turn out hard. If you want to substitute with flour, you probably have to trial and error and tweak as you go 🙂
So sorry I can’t tell you an exact amount of flour to be used as I did not try baking the version whereby the yolk is substituted with flour. If you do try, do let me know! 🙂