March Daring Baker's Challenge II - Orange Tian!

I have never been a fan of marmalade, or anything really orange-y flavoured, except for maybe delsym cough syrup when I was a kid. Orange popsicles had thier place, and I do enjoy a good orange or glass of orange juice, but orange desserts never really did it for me. I'd much rather get my citrus fill from lemon meringue or key lime pie. However, at least oranges aren't grapefruit.

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.

That said, this month's Daring Bakers dessert was for my daddy. He loves marmalade. Loves it. And oranges in general. And the orange tian just so happens to have both! I've made jam in the past (strawberry and raspberry are my favourites), so making marmalade didn't seem like too much of a challenge. And after spending the time blanching the orange slices, cutting them up, and mixing everything together on the stove, I was happy to see a delicious pot of golden orange marmalade wasn't beyond my reach.



Too bad it still tasted like marmalade.

Regardless, the pate sablee biscuits were to die for, and totally made up for it. But they were an adventure too. See, my family isn't a big food processor user. We have a food processor... From when my parents got married more than 25 years ago. It has a very tiny bowl. And it's missing parts, so when I went to make the dough, I had to do it in parts, and when I went to clean the blade, I had to make some fancy use of my handy tweezers (don't worry, I washed them before and after!).


However, it made a lovely dough, and the biscuits that came out were really delightfully flaky. I ended up making two kinds: the first were made following the directions, but I had mislaid the vanilla extract, so I made a bit of a substitution!


The second were made by substituting 3/4 of a cup of cocoa powder in for some of the flour, and a slightly different additive for the vanill I just couldn't seem to find!


Both kinds of cookies were yummy. My favourites were the chocolate ones, but my parents and brother preferred the vanilla ones. We'll be making them again for a summer party dessert!

The whipping cream was deliciously fluffy, and the orange segments were... Orange segments? The caramel sauce was nice, and I think it definitely made the oranges better. My original plan was to use blood orange segments or mixed citrus, but in the end my creativity was limited by the state of the grocer's produce department in March. The blood oranges had been beaten to a pulp (and a couple of them were mouldy, ew!), and the only good looking citruses were the navel and seville oranges, so that's what I went with!

With Easter coming up, I decided to make a couple smaller egg-shaped tians and the rest rounded. The only limitation to the rounded ones was that we have weird, double-sided cookie cutters, so I couldn't build the dessert in them. So, I did what I do every time I don't have what I need in the kitchen: I improvised!


Regardless, the desserts came out lovely, and though tainted by the marmalade on the biscuit (I'd leave it out the next time if I were making them for myself, or use an orange jam rather than a peel-containing marmalade!), they tasted yummy and looked impressive. I think I may try them with strawberries or other fresh fruit come summertime!