Notes: The recipe on Epicurious is copied verbatim from the book, but the recipe on marthastewart.com is slightly altered to fix typos in the yield, plus there's a video of her and Pichet making this recipe. Tangerines are traditional fruit given out during Chinese New Year (hey, why didn't we have any at our family dinner this weekend???) so I thought this whimsical dessert would fit the theme. The filling is caramelized pineapple made using palm sugar which I found at T&T in a fat, cylindrical package. It was very brown (unlike the type pictured here) and made the filling a dark colour. The pastry (made using custard powder, and hence, very yellow) was problematic: it tended to crack very easily as I was forming the “tangerines”. It was very laborious to pinch the seams closed for every single one. Fortunately, the dough does not puff in the oven, and the filling is dry so there was no leakage or bursting. These were very tasty, with a sweet-tangy centre surrounded by a tender, flaky shell. Now that I think about it, the pastry resembles short dough made with cooked egg yolk that is crumbly and melts in your mouth.
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