When Life Hands you Lemons . . . Errr Oranges

"Defeat should never be a source of discouragement, but rather a fresh stimulus." ~South

Yes, it's Tuesday again, and we all know what that means. It's Tuesdays With Dorie day!!! The one day a week that I join in with a multitude of other keen bakers who are baking their way through Dorie Greenspan's cookery book, "From My Home to Yours." Each week we bake another tempting and taste bud tingling delight!

This week, Mary of Starting From Scratch has chosen . . . . The Most Extraordinary French Lemon Cream Tart. Now . . . my Todd is not a lover of lemon anything (I know??? He's nuts!!!) , and so I opted to make the alternative recipe, which was a Fresh Orange Cream Tart.



I would so love to be able to present you with a successfully completed challenge this week, but I have to say up front, I am really not sure if this ended up being a success for me or a failure. I'll just have to let you decide!

I love Dorie's method of rubbing the sugar and fruit zest together. The end result is such a lovely smelling mixture that I could just sit all day and huff it, but having a tart to bake means I could not linger . . . I had work to do!!!

I decided early on that I was going to put my own twist on the recipe and make a number of individual tarts instead of a whole tart, and my little tarts would going to be different, kind of like mille feuille's except orange ones, and in pretty flower shapes no less, not ordinary at all.

There was a method to my madness and that is . . . I have no luck with sweet pastries at all. It always shrinks for me. I have tried everything and it always comes out looking abysmal. I thought that at least if I started off with flat pastry there would be nowhere else for it to go! I sprinkled some Demerara sugar onto the tops of half of my pastry flowers and cut some of it into moon slivers for the garnish and sprinkled sugar on those as well, and they baked up beautifully. Pastry . . . done.




Next came the filling. I was prepared for this to be somewhat difficult, after having read about some of the problems some of the ladies were having on the Tuesdays With Dorie site. It seemed that quite a few of them had problems getting the cream mixture up to 180*F on their thermometers and that it was taking quite a bit longer than the recipe's stated "10 minutes" to do so. I have to say mine was no exception. Ten minutes of whisking feel more like Twenty, and I am a very patient person, but mine never did come up to 180*F and at the end of what seemed like an endless fifteen minutes and when my arm finally protested and felt like it was going to fall off, I finally decided I had had enough, and continued on with the rest of the recipe. I'm not sure if this was the problem or if my gelatin was old (it was rather . . . I had meant to go out and buy fresh earlier in the week but totally forgot . . . insert sheepish, rather embarassed grin here) but my curd, or cream or whatever you wish to call it never did thicken up to the point where it was going to be suitable for filling a tart, even after an overnight stay in the refrigerator!

What to do . . . what to do . . .



Now, I have always been the type of person, if life hands me lemons . . . I immediately start making lemonade! (Or in this case Orangeade!) Because once again, I had left this to the last minute, (I really need to stop doing this) I did not have time to make the cream again so I had to quickly think of something that I could do with what I had instead. That's when the inspiration hit me and I decided to whip up some double cream and fold the orange cream into it. It still was not as solid as I would have liked, but it was quite passable. I then layered the cream between my layers of pastry along with a few tinned mandarine orange segments that I had lovingly drained and patted dry with kitchen toweling. I thought it looked rather lovely when I had finished, even if it didn't exactly match the image I had had in my head when I had started the challenge.



It was rather tasty . . . even if I don't say so myself, and Todd snuffled it back in double time, enjoying every mouthful. So, was this a failure for me????

I don't really know . . . it didn't quite feel like one, however it didn't exactly feel like a success either. I'll have to try this again, sometime when I have more time and see if I can't make it come out the way it was supposed to . . . or maybe not . . . I rather liked it the way it was! (Next week we're doing marshmallows!)



*Fresh Orange Cream Tart*

For the orange filling:
1 cup sugar
grated zest of 3 oranges
grated zest of 1 lemon
4 large eggs
scant 3/4 cup of fresh blood orange juice or Valencia orange juice
3 TBS fresh lemon juice
1 1/4 tsp unflavoured gelatin
1 TBS cold water
2 3/4 stick (11 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon size pieces
at cool room temperature

1 9 inch tart shell (round or square)

3 orange segments, for decoration
1/3 cup of quince or apple jelly mixed with 1/2 tsp of water for glazing

Getting ready: Have an insant read thermometer, a strainer and a blender (first choice) or food processor at hand. Bring a few inches of water to a simmer in a saucepan.

Put the sugar and orange and lemon zest in a large heatproof bowl that can be set over the pan of simmering water. Off the heat, rub the sugar and the zests together between your fingertips until the sugar is moist, grainy and very aromatic. Whisk in the eggs, followed by the orange and lemon juices.

Set the bowl over the pan and start stirring with the whisk as soon as the mixture feels tepid to the touch. You want to cook the cream until it reaches 180*F. As you whisk - you must whisk constantly to keep the eggs from scrambling - you'll see that the cream will start out light and foamy, then the bubbles will get bigger and then, as it gets closer to 180*F, it will start to thicken and the whisk will leave tracks. Heads up at this point - the tracks mean the cream is almost ready. Don't stop whisking or checking the temperature, andhave patience - depending on how much heat you're giving the cream, getting to temp can take as long as 10 minutes.

As soon as it reaches 180*F, remove the cream from the heat and strain it into the container of the blender, or food processor, discard the zest.

Soften the gelatin in the cold water, then dissolve it by heating it for 15 seconds in a microwave oven ( or do this in a saucepan over extremely low heat). Add the gelatin to the filling and pluse once just to blend, then let the filling cool to 140*F, about ten minutes.

Turn teh blender to high (or turn on the processor) and, with the machine going, add teh butter about 5 pieces at a time. Scrape down the sides of the container as needed as you incorporate the butter. Once the butter is in, keep the machine going - to get the perfect, light, airy texure , you must continue to blend the cream for another 3 minutes. If your machine protests and gets a bit too hot, work to 1 minute intervals, giving the machine a little rest in between beats.

Pour the cream into a container, press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface and refrigerate for at least 4 hours. (The cream can be refrigerated, tightly covered, for up to 5 days, or frozen for up to 2 months; thaw overnight in the fridge.)

When you are ready to construct the tart, whisk the cream vigorously to loosen it. Spread teh cream evenly in the crust. Arrange the orange segments in the centre of the tart and prepare the glaze: bring the jelly and water to the boil. Use a pastry brush or pastry feather to lightly spread the jelly over the orange segments and cream. Serve now or refrigerate the tart until needed.

*Sweet Tart Dough*

1 ½ cups all purpose flour
½ cup confectioners’ sugar
¼ tsp salt
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon (9 T) very cold (or frozen) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk

Put the flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor and pulse a couple of times to combine. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is coarsely cut in- you should have some pieces the size of oatmeal fakes and others the size of peas. Stir the yolk, just to break it up, and add it a little at a time, pulsing after each addition. When the egg is in, process in long pulses- about 10 seconds each- until the dough, which will look granular soon after the egg is added, forms clumps and curds. Just before you reach this stage, the sound of the machine working the dough will change- heads up. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and, very lightly and sparingly, knead the dough just to incorporate and dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing.

To press the dough into the pan: butter a 9-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom. Press the dough evenly over the bottom and up the sides of the pan, using all but one little piece of dough, which you should save in the refrigerator to patch any cracks after the crust is baked. Don’t be too heavy handed- press the crust in so that the edges of the pieces cling to one another, but not so hard that the crust loses its crumbly texture. Freeze the crust for at least 30 minutes, preferable longer, before baking.

To partially or fully bake the crust: center a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 375 degrees F.

Butter the shiny side of aluminum foil and fit the foil, buttered side down, against the crust. (since you froze it, you can bake it without weights). Put the tart pan on a baking sheet and bake the crust for 25 minutes. Carefully remove the foil. If the crust has puffed, carefully press it down with the back of a spoon. For partially baked crust, patch the crust if necessary, then transfer the crust to a cooling rack. To fully bake the crust, bake for another 8 minutes or so, or until it is firm and golden brown. Transfer pan to a rack and cool the crust to room temperature before filling.