Baby Orange Tian for a Daring Bakers March 2010 Challenge

I thought I'd never get this post up! I've barely finished taking the pictures of this today and writing this post just now. This month has been very busy. I was thinking of opting out but this challenge looked like a dessert I would enjoy, so I gave it a go.

What also attracted me into it is the homemade orange marmalade which was part of the challenge. I rarely make desserts with orange. Orange is something I just buy as juice cartons. Of the citrus family, I most of the time buy lemons, grapefruits, satsumas and clementines. So it was a nice change to have some real oranges at home after a long time!

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.

THE DARING BAKERS MARCH 2010 CHALLENGE: ORANGE TIAN


The homemade marmalade called for pectin which I couldn't find. There are some jam sugar in the supermarkets here but I didn't bother with that. I've made jams before with just the fruit and sugar and I really love it this way. I don't particularly like the jelly consistency of store bought jams and this is the reason I would make jam at home. I sometimes put a little agar flakes but this time I did not have any at home. I just used soft dark brown sugar and that was the only other ingredient apart from the oranges. More of a compote than marmalade maybe, but very nice!

The recipe suggested to slice the oranges with the peel, then blanch 3 times in water, pouring off the water each time, to get rid of the bitterness.
I, however, blanched the oranges whole, without peeling, 3 times, pouring the water off each time after 5 - 6 minutes of boiling. I found that the oranges retained more of their flavour in this way. And no bitterness at all, which I liked!



The dessert is made of different layers: a pate sablee with orange marmalade, a flavoured whipped cream topped with fresh orange segments and served with a caramel and orange sauce. It is built upside down and then unmolded so that the bottom layer (the orange segments) becomes the top layer.

My version of the tian is a bitesize baby orange tian. I made them in empty tealight holders. I usually like to keep my tealight holders for some reason after the candles melted away. I sometimes use them as cookie cutters.



I used a pate sablee recipe that did not contain any egg. I don't think pate sablee really needs any eggs. Well, anyway, I can't remember where I got the recipe from but the proportions of
flour : icing sugar : ground almond : (cold) vegan butter is
2:2:1:1.
Also a pinch of salt.

As I did not use any ground almonds, I increased the butter by a little.

As for the whipped cream, I made thick custard instead using custard powder, soy milk and sugar.

This dessert was really nice and I liked the simple combination of pate sablee, custard, marmalade, caramel and oranges into something really yummy! It was very refreshing!

The marmalade I will definitely make again!