Pineapple and Durian Nastar

Made this nastar last Sunday, right after church. I started at 4pm and finished everything by almost midnight!!!! I know, it's not that many cookies, but imagine if you have to roll each filling into small balls, then wrap it with the dough, make sure they're round and the same size for more than 200 pieces of nastar. Not to mention that you have to glaze each one of them in the middle of baking. I think my back is still aching :).

But anyways, this is the first time I made durian nastar. I made the nastar filling while I was in Indonesia, since durians are much more flavorful there and fresh too (it's almost impossible to get a fresh durian here in the US). It turns out that durian filling is a lot more difficult to be molded. It's soft and a little sticky, even after I refrigerate it for a loooong time. Unlike the pineapple filling, it gets firmed up once it's refrigerated and therefore makes it easier to be molded.

Despite all the history in the making, it was really paid off after tasting the durian nastar (I love the traditional pineapple too by the way). Too bad I was only making a few of them (the tall container). Although I'm somewhat traumatic making nastar by myself after those long hours, I'm excited to make the durian nastar again, only half a recipe though. It would take what..about 4 hours?? :P