Saturday, March 27, 2010

I Cara Cara for You - Miniature Orange Tians for Daring Bakers 3/10

Orange you glad you stopped by? Ok, no more puns...for now. Spring citrus makes me giddy. It makes me think of sunshine and kid's soccer games. It reminds me of how my mom would cut a hole through each orange and hand them out to me, my brother and my cousins to squeeze and suck dry, then tear open to eat the left over fruit. It was a snack that kept us busy for a long time, and left us with sticky arms from the juice running down them, which meant another giggling run through the sprinklers. The only thing that could make citrus even better, would be to add whipped cream and a cookie!
Cara Cara Orange Tian Tinies

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.
Because I'm always looking for ideas to add to my Artisanal Catering services, I decided to make these in small 3inch servings. I used a wonderful pan from Chicago Metalics that is made for individual cheese cakes and has removable bottoms. It worked out fantastic, plus I can keep these frozen and just pop one out as needed for my family (okay, who am I kidding - mostly for me!)

Here's the process, then the recipe from the Daring Bakers will follow (along with red highlights of my tweaks.)First I cut the orange peels off, then into circles and soaked them in the simple syrup. I made the cookies and the marmalade a day ahead. Our challenge including making our own marmalade, not a hard thing and I hope you'll try it. It was just an easy refrigerator version and made enough to use on morning scones later. Mmmm.
I placed an orange slice in the bottom of the pan. Filled with the whipped cream that had been chilled (recipe below), spread some marmalade on the small Pate Sable cookies and turned it upside down on the whipped cream. After chilling for about 20 minutes, I could push each one out and set it up straight so the golden orange was on top. Then, using some of the juice and syrup that was left over, heated it into a caramel. I topped a few with the caramel sauce, dropped some zest into some of it, and then made some of it into pulled sugar disks. Experiment with it, you'll find your favorite.


RECIPES:

For the Pate Sablee:

2 medium-sized egg yolks at room temperature
granulated sugar 6 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon
vanilla extract ½ teaspoon
Unsalted butter ¼ cup + 3 tablespoons ice cold, cubed
Salt 1/3 teaspoon
All-purpose flour 1.5 cup + 2 tablespoons
baking powder 1 teaspoon

Directions:
Put the flour, baking powder, ice cold cubed butter and salt in a food processor fitted with a steel blade.

In a separate bowl, add the eggs yolks, vanilla extract and sugar and beat with a whisk until the mixture is pale. Pour the egg mixture in the food processor.

Process until the dough just comes together. If you find that the dough is still a little too crumbly to come together, add a couple drops of water and process again to form a rough ball of dough. Form into a disc, cover with plastic wrap and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit.

Roll out the dough onto a lightly floured surface until you obtain a ¼ inch thick circle.

Using your cookie cutter, cut out circles of dough and place on a parchment (or silicone) lined baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes or until the circles of dough are just golden.

For the Marmalade:

Ingredients
Freshly pressed orange juice ¼ cup + 3 tablespoons
1 large orange used to make orange slices
cold water to cook the orange slices
pectin 5 grams
granulated sugar: use the same weight as the weight of orange slices once they are cooked

Finely slice the orange. Place the orange slices in a medium-sized pot filled with cold water. Simmer for about 10 minutes, discard the water, re-fill with cold water and blanch the oranges for another 10 minutes.

Blanch the orange slices 3 times. This process removes the bitterness from the orange peel, so it is essential to use a new batch of cold water every time when you blanch the slices.

Once blanched 3 times, drain the slices and let them cool.

Once they are cool enough to handle, finely mince them (using a knife or a food processor).

Weigh the slices and use the same amount of granulated sugar . If you don’t have a scale, you can place the slices in a cup measurer and use the same amount of sugar.

In a pot over medium heat, add the minced orange slices, the sugar you just weighed, the orange juice and the pectin. Cook until the mixture reaches a jam consistency (10-15 minutes).

** add 2Tbls of brandy and reheat to boiling, stirring for 5 minutes.

Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge.

For the Orange Segments:

For this step you will need 8 oranges.

Cut the oranges into segments over a shallow bowl and make sure to keep the juice. Add the segments to the bowl with the juice.

**Cut the rind off oranges and slice into rounds


For the Caramel:
granulated sugar 1 cup
orange juice 1.5 cups + 2 tablespoons

Place the sugar in a pan on medium heat and begin heating it.

Once the sugar starts to bubble and foam, slowly add the orange juice. As soon as the mixture starts boiling, remove from the heat and pour half of the mixture over the orange segments.

Reserve the other half of the caramel mixture in a small bowl — you will use this later to spoon over the finished dessert. When the dessert is assembled and setting in the freezer, heat the kept caramel sauce in a small saucepan over low heat until it thickens and just coats the back of a spoon (about 10 minutes). You can then spoon it over the orange tians.

[Tip: Be very careful when making the caramel — if you have never made caramel before, I would suggest making this step while you don’t have to worry about anything else. Bubbling sugar is extremely, extremely hot, so make sure you have a bowl of ice cold water in the kitchen in case anyone gets burnt!]

For the Whipped Cream:
heavy whipping cream 1 cup
3 tablespoons of hot water
1 tsp Gelatine
1 tablespoon of confectioner's sugar
orange marmalade (see recipe above) 1 tablespoon

In a small bowl, add the gelatine and hot water, stirring well until the gelatine dissolves. Let the gelatine cool to room temperature while you make the whipped cream. Combine the cream in a chilled mixing bowl. Whip the cream using a hand mixer on low speed until the cream starts to thicken for about one minute. Add the confectioner sugar. Increase the speed to medium-high. Whip the cream until the beaters leave visible (but not lasting) trails in the cream, then add the cooled gelatine slowly while beating continuously. Continue whipping until the cream is light and fluffy and forms soft peaks. Transfer the whipped cream to a bowl and fold in the orange marmalade.
[Tip: Use an ice cold bowl to make the whipped cream in. You can do this by putting your mixing bowl, cream and beater in the fridge for 20 minutes prior to whipping the cream.]

Assembling the Dessert:

**I used a mini-cheese cake pan by Chicago Metalica, with removable bottoms.

Make sure you have some room in your freezer. Ideally, you should be able to fit a small baking sheet or tray of desserts to set in the freezer.

Line a small tray or baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone sheet. Lay out 6 cookie cutters onto the parchment paper/silicone.

Drain the orange segments on a kitchen towel.

Have the marmalade, whipped cream and baked circles of dough ready to use.

Arrange the orange segments at the bottom of each cookie cutter. Make sure the segments all touch either and that there are no gaps. Make sure they fit snuggly and look pretty as they will end up being the top of the dessert. Arrange them as you would sliced apples when making an apple tart.

Once you have neatly arranged one layer of orange segments at the bottom of each cookie cutter, add a couple spoonfuls of whipped cream and gently spread it so that it fills the cookie cutter in an even layer. Leave about 1/4 inch at the top so there is room for dough circle.

Using a butter knife or small spoon, spread a small even layer of orange marmalade on each circle of dough.

Carefully place a circle of dough over each ring (the side of dough covered in marmalade should be the side touching the whipping cream). Gently press on the circle of dough to make sure the dessert is compact.

Place the desserts to set in the freezer to set for 10 minutes.

Using a small knife, gently go around the edges of the cookie cutter to make sure the dessert will be easy to unmold. Gently place your serving plate on top of a dessert (on top of the circle of dough) and turn the plate over. Gently remove the cookie cutter, add a spoonful of caramel sauce and serve immediately.

8 comments:

Karen | Citrus and Candy said...

Yesterday I've never heard of cara caras. Today I'm reading a few posts on them. I'm intrigued and must learn more!

Beautiful tians btw :)

Mary said...

The mimi tians with the cara cara oranges are beautiful! I love your caramel on top--much nicer than my drippy caramel:)
Tian-Q for sharing! Groan...

chef_d said...

i love the idea of cutting the oranges in rounds, they look pretty and very practical!

Sarah said...

Your pan looks perfect for this projects and the results definitely look professional, which makes you sense as you are a Chef! Great work. I wish I had made mine smaller so I had more leftover.

Lauren said...

Darling, I think we did exactly the same thing. Cara caras, and I did mine in the mini cheesecake pan too. Except, I skipped the caramel. Otherwise, the same! How fun =D.

Becca said...

Beautifully done! Love the idea of adding brandy to the marmalade.

Charles G Thompson said...

Those so wonderful. Seems like they'd be the perfect spring dessert. I like that they're individual sized too.

showfoodchef said...

Karen - Thx, and yeah, the Cara Cara are particularly sweet.

Mary - Thx and I liked your pun back at me.

Chef D - Thx, I always like your DB's!

Sarah - Thx. I ate way too many of these - your size was probably safer :D

Lauren - I'm loving that we did similar things. I'm honored to be thinking like you since I love your ideas.

Becca - Thx. Yeah, guess I look for ways to add brandy to fruit. Love it.

Charles - Thx and for stopping by and following. So appreciated.