Sunday, March 28, 2010

daring bakers: blood orange tian

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose orange tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

This is my first Daring Bakers challenge, and it was a lot of fun. I had never heard of a tian before. The dessert is a pate sablee spread with orange marmalade and covered with whipped cream, orange segments, and orange caramel. This was a nice dessert, but it needs a little punch. If I made it again, I'd use a cream cheese-whipped cream mixture instead of plain whipped cream.

I decided to make mine with blood oranges. I think they're beautiful, and I especially love the way they look like jelly candy when you slice them.

I've made pate sablee before, so making it was a snap (especially now that my grocery store carries almond flour). The marmalade was easy as well, and unusually tasty. I was out of pectin, so I used some gelatine to set the marmalade. Too much gelatine, as it turned out. My delicious marmalade turned into delicious blood orange jello. I snacked on a little of it and threw the rest in the food processor with hot water until it was spreadable.

I was excited that Jennifer included a recipe for stabilized whipped cream, because I've always had trouble making it, even when I follow the recipes in my cookbooks exactly. Apparently the gelatine requires a lot more water than my other recipes suggested. This time, it worked perfectly--no horrible gelatine chunks to be strained out of my whipped cream.

I had a little trouble with the caramel. The sugar seized when I added the orange juice. I had to take the pan off the heat and keep reheating the juice and pouring it over the sugar until most of it mixed together. Then I moved it to a different pan to thicken it.

Segmenting the oranges was the hardest part for me. Thank goodness Jennifer gave us a link on how to do it. Even with great instructions, it took me forever to segment the oranges. After soaking them in the caramel and draining them, I put the soaking caramel back in with the rest so I could have extra sauce.

The upside-down assembly was fun. I broke my crust trying to assemble the dessert, but you couldn't really tell once it was all together.

















blood orange tian (adapted from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School)

pate sablee
2 medium-sized egg yolks, room temperature
6 TB + 1 tsp sugar
½ tsp vanilla
¼ C + 3 TB unsalted butter, ice cold, cubed
1/3 tsp salt
1.5 C + 2 TB flour
1 tsp baking powder

Put the flour, baking powder, ice cold cubed butter and salt in a food processor fitted with a steel blade.

In a separate bowl, add the eggs yolks, vanilla extract and sugar and beat with a whisk until the mixture is pale. Pour the egg mixture in the food processor.

Process until the dough just comes together. If you find that the dough is still a little too crumbly to come together, add a couple drops of water and process again to form a homogeneous ball of dough. Form into a disc, cover with plastic wrap and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit.

Pat the dough onto the bottom of a parchment-paper-lined 9" springform pan until you have a .25"-thick circle.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the circles of dough are just golden.


blood orange marmalade

.25 C + 3 TB fresh blood orange juice
1 large orange (to make orange slices)
cold water
5 g pectin
granulated sugar: use the same weight as the weight of orange slices once they are cooked

Finely slice the orange. Place the orange slices in a medium-sized pot filled with cold water. Simmer for about 10 minutes, discard the water, re-fill with cold water and blanch the oranges for another 10 minutes.

Blanch the orange slices 3 times. This process removes the bitterness from the orange peel, so it is essential to use a new batch of cold water every time when you blanch the slices.

Once blanched 3 times, drain the slices and let them cool.

Once they are cool enough to handle, finely mince them (using a knife or a food processor).

Weigh the slices and use the same amount of granulated sugar. If you don’t have a scale, you can place the slices in a cup measurer and use the same amount of sugar.

In a pot over medium heat, add the minced orange slices, the sugar you just weighed, the orange juice and the pectin. Cook until the mixture reaches a jam consistency (10-15 minutes).

Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge.

blood orange segments:
8 blood oranges

Cut the oranges into segments over a shallow bowl and make sure to keep the juice. Add the segments to the bowl with the juice.


blood orange caramel:
1 C sugar
1.5 C + 2 TB blood orange juice

Place the sugar in a pan on medium heat and begin heating it.

Once the sugar starts to bubble and foam, slowly add the orange juice. As soon as the mixture starts boiling, remove from the heat and pour half of the mixture over the orange segments.

Reserve the other half of the caramel mixture in a small bowl — you will use this later to spoon over the finished dessert. When the dessert is assembled and setting in the freezer, heat the kept caramel sauce in a small saucepan over low heat until it thickens and just coats the back of a spoon (about 10 minutes). You can then spoon it over the orange tians.


stabilized whipped cream with marmalade:
1 C heavy whipping cream 1 cup
3 TB hot water
1 tsp gelatine
1 TB confectioner's sugar
1 TB orange marmalade (see recipe above)

In a small bowl, add the gelatine and hot water, stirring well until the gelatine dissolves. Let the gelatine cool to room temperature while you make the whipped cream. Combine the cream in a chilled mixing bowl. Whip the cream using a hand mixer on low speed until the cream starts to thicken for about one minute. Add the confectioner's sugar. Increase the speed to medium-high. Whip the cream until the beaters leave visible (but not lasting) trails in the cream, then add the cooled gelatine slowly while beating continuously. Continue whipping until the cream is light and fluffy and forms soft peaks. Transfer the whipped cream to a bowl and fold in the orange marmalade.


assembly:
Make sure you have some room in your freezer. Ideally, you should be able to fit a small baking sheet or tray of desserts to set in the freezer.

Line a small tray or baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone sheet. Lay out 6 cookie cutters onto the parchment paper/silicone.

Drain the orange segments on a kitchen towel.

Have the marmalade, whipped cream and baked circles of dough ready to use.

Arrange the orange segments at the bottom of each cookie cutter. Make sure the segments all touch either and that there are no gaps. Make sure they fit snuggly and look pretty as they will end up being the top of the dessert. Arrange them as you would sliced apples when making an apple tart.

Once you have neatly arranged one layer of orange segments at the bottom of each cookie cutter, add a couple spoonfuls of whipped cream and gently spread it so that it fills the cookie cutter in an even layer. Leave about 1/4 inch at the top so there is room for dough circle.

Using a butter knife or small spoon, spread a small even layer of orange marmalade on each circle of dough.

Carefully place a circle of dough over each ring (the side of dough covered in marmalade should be the side touching the whipping cream). Gently press on the circle of dough to make sure the dessert is compact.

Place the desserts to set in the freezer to set for 10 minutes.

Using a small knife, gently go around the edges of the cookie cutter to make sure the dessert will be easy to unmold. Gently place your serving plate on top of a dessert (on top of the circle of dough) and turn the plate over. Gently remove the cookie cutter, add a spoonful of caramel sauce and serve immediately.

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