French Friday with Dorie: Mandarin-Almond Tarts and Strawberry-Almond Tarts

This time of year, a staple in our refrigerator is a bag of mandarins, so for this week's recipe instead of going to the store and purchasing oranges, I decided to use the fruit I had on hand. When you have a piece of fruit with a cute little sticker on it, how can you not want to make it the star of your tart?

I have some little tart pans which were the perfect size for the mandarin segments. Let me tell you though, when Dorie says "4 navel or other meaty oranges," she means 'meaty.' An hour and 4 mandarins later, I managed to have only seven segments that looked half-way decent after carefully trying to remove the membranes. More than a little frustrated, I placed them under some paper towels so they could dry overnight. 

I then made the pâte sablée and had enough dough to make six small 2-inch tart shells and two 4-inch shells. Knowing full well there was no way I was going to take the time to try to get enough mandarin segments for the remaining shells, I decided to try strawberry slices instead. While I was slicing them I realized that they resembled hearts and I thought how perfect for Valentine's Day! It totally perked me up after spending so long working on the mandarins. I put the strawblerry slices under another set of paper towels to let them dry.

The almond cream for the tart calls for almond flour and for some reason I have not been able to find almond flour here. You would think with almond trees growing pretty much all around me that someone here locally would be making and selling it, but if they are, I have not found them. So, I made my own almond flour in the food processor thanks to my friend, Mike. It couldn't have been easier, so I will probably do this from now on because you can make only what you need for the recipe. I subbed Amaretti Disaronno for the dark rum which really enhanced the almond flavor in the cream.

The pastry cream puffed up nicely in the tart shells, but I probably filled them too full because I thought they would fall after removing them from the oven, but they didn't. I opted not to put a glaze on my tarts and I started to put a light dusting of confectioners' sugar, but then stopped myself because I decided that I wanted to be able to taste the fruit in the tarts without tasting the extra layer of sugar.

The great thing about these tarts is that you could taste the two fruits, but in a different way. After sampling both kinds of tarts, my husband said that with the mandarin tarts the sweet tanginess of the mandarins was dispersed throughout the tart and with the strawberry tarts you could taste the strawberries, but the sweet strawberry taste was centered right around the fruit slice itself.

I thought he was spot on. Did we favor one over the other? No. We ate all but two of the tarts between the two of us that night. All but two. Between just the two of us. And we shared the remaining two the following night.

After licking the last bit of pastry cream off his fingers, John said, "I would definitely buy these at a bakery." In my family, that remark is the ultimate compliment.

Please visit French Fridays with Dorie to see what kinds of almond tarts the other members made this week.

You can find this recipe in Dorie Greenspan's, Around My French Table, pp. 460-62.

Next French Friday: Pancetta Green Beans