After spying these little yellow-domed tarts in a bakery window, I fell instantly to speculating what they were. My boyfriend’s niece was able to interpret my vague but enthusiastic description of them to be pineapple fancies aka pineapple cakes aka pineapple tarts.

On obtaining one, my first thoughts were about whether it contained any pineapple or merely looked a bit like one, hence the name. I cut it apart and studied the internals.

The pastry case was filled with a thin layer of yellow jam (which turned out to be pineapple), a thick dome of white creamy matter and a coating of yellow icing. Taste-wise, it was very sweet, without a noticeable pineapple flavour. Pleasant, but I wasn’t hugely excited about it and I don’t think I feel the need to eat any more.

A few days later, I purchased a second for photography purposes, which got squished, and then a third (as you see here) in a pack of 4 assorted tarts. The pack contained a raspberry variant of the pineapple tart, a Bakewell tart (which doesn’t sound very Scottish and is common down South) and a fern tart (which I will review in another post).

I preferred the raspberry version of the pineapple tart, as the jam was more strongly flavoured and for me, worked better with the creamy topping. However it seems the pineapple tart is the original, and you should be able to find it easily enough, at least in Ayrshire!