Guest Post: Mandarin Tart

Here's a guest post by my lovely friend and fellow pie baker, Jess. She intros our friendship quite well, so I'll let her take it from here - but you should know observing her tricks as she rolls out pie dough has improved my pies by leaps and bounds. She's a pie expert. 

(Please note that due to my own procrastination, she sent me this lovely winter citrus recipe while Boston was still weathering winter storms, but I am posting it in the high heat of June because I didn't want to delay any longer). 

While I’ve met and appreciated all the sisters associated with this blog, the sister I’ve eaten still-too-hot pie with at midnight is Annalise. We had one class together our first semester of grad school, and spent the next two years fantasizing about crust-filling pie combos to procrastinate writing our papers until the last possible moment.

Annalise has my back by sending me food essays when I max out my quota of news articles. One of the food writers I’ve found on my own is Dorie Greenspan, an American baker and writer who lives half the year in Paris. For a Francophile, she is decidedly not foofoo. Her vibe reminds me of Marion Cunningham, another great American food writer who is not foofoo in the least. (Marion Cunningham edited the modern version of Fannie Farmer Cookbook and has a bonkers recipe for a yeasted waffle I’ve been making too frequently.https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/raised-waffles-40050/amp)

I was reading a Dorie recipe for lemon tart, and decided to do a mandarin orange version. Winter citrus like mandarin is how I’ve survived 3 Nor’easters in 11 days here in the greater Boston area, with one more on its way. Before making this tart, have your husband ease the baby into a miraculous 3-hour nap, and happen to have all necessary ingredients on hand. I found those to be key factors to my success.



Aiding in my success was the friendliness of this dough. It was easy to form into a disc and easy to flute the edges, which held perfectly when baked! My pie experiences have taught me how much better a pie crust baked with shortening or lard holds a shape than one baked with butter, because butter has a lower melting point. So I was surprised and delighted and how well this held its shaped edge. It smelled wonderful, like a sugar cookie that isn’t overly sweet. One more small note is that I baked in a pie pan instead of a tart because my tart pan was too large, and the only downside was I couldn’t pop my tart out of it once it had cooled. So pie pan or tart-either are good options for you.

The main difference between my mandarin tart and Dorie’s lemon (her recipe here: https://www.pannacooking.com/recipes/lemon-tart-recipe-dorie-greenspan/) is that using the whole mandarin, skin and all, didn’t work the way it did for lemon. I suspect that because the skin of the mandarin is thinner, it wasn’t captured and puréed as easily by the food processor. I ended up straining out the many small bits of skin and then zesting mandarin skin back into the mix. I also really pulsed the food processor for a while in an attempt to break down the mandarin skin, and this whipped more bubbles into my filling. You want to avoid bubbles because when baking they pop and mar the surface of your tart. Learn from my mistakes—go straight to zesting and juicing! I sifted powdered sugar onto my tart when it was cool to hide the bubble scars, though they really weren’t too bad.

My final important observation is that this tart is pretty jiggly when you take it out of the oven. Embrace the jiggle. You have my word it sets nicely as it cools. While it was cooling, I made use of my fruit leftovers. Because I had to zest 5 additional mandarins, I had these mandarins that needed to be used soon or their scraped bodies would get hard. So I poured myself a glass of lime seltzer and cut the remaining skin off, and used it as a juicy garnish. Beautiful and tasty.

If you also need a break from the news and love food writing, may I suggest these two gems from Dorie.

https://www.saveur.com/dorie-greenspan-new-years-eve-menu

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/25/magazine/food-issue-dorie-greenspan-paris-dinner.html

Ingredients:
For crust:1 ½ cups all purpose flour
½ cup confectioners’ sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
9 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter cut small
1 large egg yolk
Additional butter for aluminum foil and pie plate/tart pan

For filling:
5 mandarin oranges
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
1 ½ tablespoons cornstarch
½ cup heavy cream
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
Additional confectioners’ sugar for decoration of desired.

Instructions:

Begin with the crust: Put the flour, confectioners’ sugar, and salt in a food processor and pulse to combine. Add the butter and pulse in short bursts so the butter is pea-sized lumps. I added the butter half at a time to avoid it becoming a clumpy mess, but pulsed until the pieces were much too small, and it worked out totally ok. Add egg yolk and pulse til combined. When the yolk is in, process in 2-3 10 second pulses until the dough forms slightly larger clumps.

Pour your dough crumbles out and knead to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing. Dorie would have you smear the butter into the flour with the heel of your hand. Revel in this tactile sensation.

Flatten dough into a disc, and then roll out until it is slightly bigger than your pan.

Butter your tart pan (if using one) to help your tart pop out cleanly. Drape your dough into the pan. If using a pie plate, feel free to flute the edges for decorative purposes and to help hold your filling. Prick the dough with a fork and freeze for 30 mins.

While dough is chilling, begin the filling: zest and squeeze the juice of 5 mandarins into food processor. Add sugar and pulse til combined. Then add remaining filling ingredients and pulse on low until evenly mixed. Take food processor bowl off its stand and tap it a few times on the counter to pop bubbles that may have been whipped into your mixture.

Remove chilled dough from freezer. Butter a piece of aluminum foil and drape over crust,being sure to cover the edges of your pie so they don’t overly brown. (I got a little over-browning, myself.) Fill with rice, uncooked beans, or ceramic pie weights and bake for 30 minutes at 350. At that point, remove aluminum foil and pie weights and cook for additional 10 minutes to finish setting the bottom and to brown crust. Remove crust and allow it to cool.

Decrease oven temp to 325. Carefully pour your filling into your crust. If you spill filling on the crust that will remain visible, it will look sticky when baked. If you see bubbles in your filling, you can pop them with your finger or a toothpick. Bake for 20 mins. Up temperature to 350 and bake for additional 30 mins. Remove from oven and allow to cool, either to room temperature or in the fridge.

If desired, sift additional confectioners’ sugar on top of your tart. Enjoy!