Daring Bakers' March Challenge: Orange Tian

Tian? What? It certainly sounds fancy, doesn't it? A tian is a layered dish, either sweet or savoury. The required components for this month's challenge were:

• the pastry base (pâte sablée)
• the orange marmalade
• the whipped cream
• the citrus segments
• and a caramel sauce 

I was excited about making marmalade, as I have made all sorts of preserves before, but never marmalade. I got so excited that I made about 3 litres of the stuff, or 14 jars! I used a tablespoon in the tian recipe, so there are leftovers. Want some? I've been eating it instead of ginger honey on my toast, but considering I don't eat much toast, it could last a while. I made it with Seville oranges, and it was delicious, but there was definitely a bitter undertone.  The colour was beautiful, so I may just hang a jar in my window as a suncatcher. Except I don't get much sun in my apartment. This photo was taken at my mother's--she gets lots of sun.

I really spaced out the components of this challenge. About a week after the marmalade I made the caramel and segmented the oranges (navel and blood) and grapefruit as they had to sit overnight in the caramel. The next day I made the pâte sablée and realized I had no whipping cream to make the filling. So, the citrus got an extra day in the caramel. At least some of it did--it was pretty tasty.

The next day it rained and was completely grey outside, so I postponed again. My north-facing apartment gets little enough light as it is, and I couldn't get enough to photograph anything in natural light. Of course I haven't got lights--I'm using a point and shoot camera! So, I just ate a bit more of the fruit and hoped I'd have enough to put the dessert together.

Once I finally remembered to pick up the whipping cream and the weather cleared up it came together really quickly. The recipe called for stabilizing the cream with gelatin, but since I was only making 2 small tians I didn't think this was necessary. I had read in Rose's Heavenly Cakes that dulce de leche could be used to sweeten and stabilize whipped cream, so I did that, as I thought that it would be nice with the caramel sauce, and it was. I already knew that dulce de leche went very nicely with the pastry, as I had made cookies out of the leftover pastry, sandwiched them together with dulce de leche and used them for Tuesdays with Dorie just a day earlier. Recycling is in, people!

These were delicious! The crisp and buttery pâte sablée base with the caramel whipped cream, fresh citrus and more caramel sauce made for a great combination. I used Seville orange juice in the caramel sauce, so it was not very sweet. The marmalade in the cream was a nice surprise too. Well, not really a surprise, since I had just made it, but I was still somewhat surprised to find it there. Not paying attention can have its benefits!

Mandatory blog-checking lines: 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. 

Thanks Jennifer for a great challenge! Check out the slideshow to see what all the rest of the fabulous Daring Bakers have come up with this month.
:)

Recipes after the jump.

Full text PDF link here.