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.

TWD: Dulce de leche duos, my way

If you're a member of Tuesdays with Dorie, you're probably thinking that your cookies didn't look like the ones above. That's because the ones you can see are NOT Dorie's cookies. I was a bit skeptical about the original recipe, and with good reason, it turns out. These were the ugliest cookies I've ever made! There was no picture of them in the book, either. Very suspicious...

I love dulce de leche and have made it a number of times (from scratch--none of that can-boiling business for me).   The cookie batter just seemed to have too much sugar (white+brown+dulce de leche) so I left the white sugar out, hoping they wouldn't be too sweet. Maybe this is why my cookies didn't really spread, and looked like homely little lumps after baking. I made the second tray smaller, and just ended up with smaller lumps. I added oatmeal to the third tray for the lumpy lump effect and wondered why I hadn't made only half a batch...

Anyway, people seemed to like them, but they were too cakey for me, and I couldn't get past their appearance. So, what to do? Skip posting this week, even though I made the cookies, or make another batch of something? I had some pâte sablée in the freezer, so decided to roll and bake a few of these to fill with dulce de leche. Much better: the cookies were crisp and buttery and the filling didn't just soak in and make them even cakier. If you're still reading this, you deserve a good laugh, so check after the jump for the photo of the original cookies. Better still, head over to the TWD blogroll to see what they were supposed to look like. This week's recipe was chosen by Jodie of Beansy Loves Cake. I bet hers look nice!