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 month amongst the Daring Bakers, a monthly cooking/blogging challenge. I joined to be challenged and to say this months choice of desserts was challenging would be an understatement. It certainly introduced me to unknown techniques as well as unfamiliar recipes.
This dessert is made up of Pate Sablee, caramel, oranges, orange marmalade and whipped cream. All made from scratch. I started out with the marmalade late one night after the Bug went to bed. I’ve never made any sort of jam/jelly/marmalade before, so it was an adventure and I was quite surprised with the results. I’ve never been a fan of marmalade but this was quite good. Fortunately, the recipe made more than enough for the Tian so I had some left over. YUM!
The next morning, bright and early, I started sectioning the oranges. For those of you that recall the frantic months before we moved here and how determined I was to be able to see the sun rising over the mountains, I give you this:
The next step was making the caramel. What could go wrong with cooking sugar so hot that it melts and then adding cold orange juice to it? What could possibly go wrong? Besides the 14 different ways I was panicking while waiting for the sugar to transform into caramel, it actually went rather smoothly. Adding the orange juice freaked me out a bit since everything seized up, but I put it back on the stove and ultimately it melted into caramelly orangy goodness.
Making the Pate Sablee was not only easy, it was divine. It is very much a shortcake type of dough/crust thingy. Unfortunately, we didn’t have as much left over of that as I would have liked. I’ll make it again soon and try making a milano type cookie something with it. Pate Sablee is excellent as crusts for tarts of all kinds.
Besides making the whipped cream, the only thing left to do was to construct it and put it in the freezer for a bit. I ran into a little problem because I knew I did not have enough molds to make these things, if I even had one the right size, I certainly didn’t have six. After thinking about it a while, I realized that soup cans were about the right size, so I had Tom cut a few in half for me, and ta-da! 6 forms! They are also a great size for big biscuits, cookies and I’m sure more things, since I’ve already used them twice in the two days I’ve had them. I don’t know that I would cook anything inside them, I’ll have to google that, but a clever solution. Just so you know, it is a dollar pincher too. I saw a link to some molds about this size at Sur La Table for $7 EACH! Not that I would ever spend that much on metal circles, but just letting you know.
I doubt I’ve ever ordered a citrus dessert in my life. I’m more of a cake girl, or even a tart girl, but not much of a citrus girl. I was not expecting much from this dessert and figured the worst case scenario was that Katie would enjoy it or it would disappear into the night time snacking that Tom is so fond of. Let me tell you exactly how wrong I was. These were delicious! Much lighter than I thought that they would be and also far more subtle. I wasn’t overwhelmed with any of the flavors yet they blended together beautifully. The only thing I think I could have done better was the Pate Sablee, I think it would have been a bit better had I taken it out of the oven a few minutes earlier. The rest of the dessert is so light and fluffy (YUMMY CLOUDS!) having a crisp crust was disconcerting.
Overall, this is a fantastic dessert. I look forward to doing it again, I think it would be fantastic with strawberries and apples…ooh, apples would be yummy. The caramel and apple combination would be delicious.
The experience was fantastic and I enjoyed every bit of it. Just so you know, the challenges come out on the first of the month so I’ll be doing the cooking most likely the Monday after the 1st.
Here is a pic of one I took out of the freezer a tad too soon, but I dolled it up with spun sugar. Hey, I was making caramel, why not go a step further for some spun sugar? 
And thus concludes my first foray into the world of The Daring Bakers.
By the way, the dish used is from a beautiful tea set my mother gave me. I’ve never been able to find anything about it and only found one picture of it online. Not even replacements.com could help. It is by far, my most favorite dishes and they looked amazing with this dessert. Thanks Mom!
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