Nastar - Indonesian Spiced-Pineapple Cookies

This one is a must! My sister-in-law loves them as each year I put these cookies in my tiny Christmas' parcel for her family (since I'm married to my hubby - so far I never forget to give these to family:)). Perhaps the spices in the pineapple mix that makes it so yummy, mixed with the soft-buttery cookie dough... hmm. You won't stop if you don't warn yourself or you stop when it's out.

There are two recipes here: the dough and the filling.

1. The dough is actually similar to the "Basic Butter Cookie Dough" however, the best to make it tastes more delicious is adding 2 more egg yolks to the mix. If it gets too crumbly, add some flower (little bit at a time).

2. Beat 2 eggs in a small bowl and a cookie brush, for glaze. Set aside.

3. Filling:

INGREDIENTS:

- 1 Fresh medium size pineapple; skin thoroughly, wash and cut into pieces. We are going to use the meat only (core not included). Blend coarsely.

- 3 to 4 blocks of dark palm sugar or 1/3 lbs brown sugar (or as you wish for sweetness).

- 3 long sticks of cinnamon, 4 to 5 pieces of whole cloves and freshly grated ½ nutmeg.

- Salt to taste.

DIRECTIONS:

- Heat the stove to medium-high.

- Using non-stick (teflon) pot, pour the grated/ground pineapple, sugar, spices and salt.

- Cook covered for about 5 minutes or until it boils.

- Low the heat ,open the cover, keep stirring until liquid from the mix dissolve (turn into pastey form).

- Remove from the heat, cool it and it will be ready to be used.

MAKING THE COOKIES

- Heat the oven to 350 degree.

- Make balls from the dough, as a size you like (mine was about lollipop size - geez, sorry, I don't know what to compare and it wasn't using weigh as measurement either:)ooopps..!). But anyway, I love to make it as tiny as possible, coz they look cute in such size rather than the size of football:).

- Flat the dough-ball, about ¼ inch thick or thinner to make it even enough for cover the whole cookie. Fill with pineapple mix about 1/3 of the size of the ball and cover it round.

- Arrange the filled cookies in a cookie sheet and bake until it's half cooked. Butter cookies usually get puffy because of the butter. So, past this phase, when the cookies start drying but before they turn to brown (before cooked), take out the sheet, using cookie brush, glaze the top of the cookies and immediately return the sheet back to the oven. Bake until the color turns golden-brown.

- Remove from the oven and cool them on the rack.

- Can be kept for up to 3 months if store in air-tight container.