The thing about living vegan, is when you try to live as before you were vegan. Especially when you are newly vegan, like me 😅
As I have only been a year-long living veganish, am still missing much of childhood goodies and whatnot.
Like these Chinese-influenced Indonesian pineapple tart cookies that we called nastar
My mother made kick-ass nastar cookies, which I still couldn’t veganize them. I tried several online recipes, they were just not good enough IMO.
The following cookies were the best I could do for now 😂 They are good in taste though, but making them was almost frustrating as I had a few failed trials using other recipes, which in other words, wasted $$$, so I was nervous I would fail again 😅 I didn’t fail as I am sharing the recipe now (the cookies are awesome, I promise!), however, for appearance? They were still not as pretty as they should have been. Should you Google these cookies, you’d see how beautiful they should be 😂
Let’s see how I made them!
Pineapple Jam Filling
- 1 large pineapple, grated (or blender)
- 1 stick of cinnamon (at least 5 cm in length)
- 1/4 c sugar
- A pinch of salt (optional)
- Pour grated pineapple into nonstick pan
- Add cinnamon stick and salt
- Cook on high until liquid is absorbed, stirring occasionally
- Once liquid is gone, stir in sugar and cook until mixture is thickened
- Cool down to room temperature and turn jam into bite size balls (the size is depending on how big you want your cookies to be)
Cookies
- 250 g flour + 1 tbsp cornstarch+1 tbsp soy milk powder
- 200 g vegetable shortening
- 50 g icing sugar
- Beat shortening and sugar until mixed then beat in dry ingredients
- Chill for an H
- Take 1 tbsp dough, fill with jam, shape into rounds/leaves/whatever you want the cookies to be shaped as!
- Chill again for half H
- Preheat oven to 350 F
- Mix enough brown sugar with aquafaba, for egg wash
- Brush/drizzle eggwash on chilled cookies (this I figured out only after the fact. I baked the cookies half way, took them out, tried to brush with egg wash didn’t work, so I drizzled, bummer😅)
- Bake cookies for 30 mins
- Cool completely on rack
Nastar
Ingredients
Filling
- 1 large pineapple grated (or blender)
- 1 stick of cinnamon at least 5 cm in length
- 1/4 c sugar
- A pinch of salt optional
Cookies
- 250 g flour + 1 tbsp cornstarch+1 tbsp soy milk powder
- 200 g vegetable shortening
- 50 g icing sugar
Instructions
Filling
- Pour grated pineapple into nonstick pan
- Add cinnamon stick and salt
- Cook on high until liquid is absorbed, stirring occasionally
- Once liquid is gone, stir in sugar and cook until mixture is thickened
- Cool down to room temperature and turn jam into bite size balls (the size is depending on how big you want your cookies to be)
Cookies
- Beat shortening and sugar until mixed then beat in dry ingredients
- Chill for an H
- Take 1 tbsp dough, fill with jam, shape into rounds/leaves/whatever you want the cookies to be shaped as!
- Chill again for half H
- Preheat oven to 350 F
- Mix enough brown sugar with aquafaba, for egg wash
- Brush/drizzle eggwash on chilled cookies (this I figured out only after the fact. I baked the cookies half way, took them out, tried to brush with egg wash didn’t work, so I drizzled, bummer😅)
- Bake cookies for 30 mins
- Cool completely on rack
