FFwD: Orange-Almond Tart

This week's French Fridays with Dorie Challenge was the orange-almond tart from her book Around My French Table.  This dish is made up of three parts--a pate brisee crust, an almond pastry cream, and fresh orange segments.  It's a good late winter recipe, with our markets so full of oranges and not much else.  See those apples on the counter? Those are the last of our stash from Mr. Boom's aunt's orchard.  Here in the north we just don't have all the fresh fruits that people in the southern climes are enjoying.  So yes, an orange tart is perfect here this time of year.

The recipe call for the oranges to be "supremed," or cut into segments minus the membranes.  These oranges were very small, though, and being navel oranges the segments were very twisty and irregular.  Had I supremed the fruits, I would have needed at least a dozen oranges.  Instead, I just cut these five oranges into thin slices.  The oranges are left to dry for a few hours, so I did these earlier on in the day and let them sit out on paper towels.

I did end up buying one "fancy" ingredient for the tart.  Almond flour has been popping up in more and more recipes I've been trying.  I usually just grind up my almonds in the food processor and call it good.  And really, it usually is just fine.  However, the last time I made french macarons, which of course was for a fancy baby shower, the nuts came out too lumpy and caused me no end of trouble.  So, I finally broke down and bought Bob's Red Mill Almond Flour.  This stuff is powdery, light, fluffy, and wonderful.  Should have done this years ago.  The price difference wasn't too much, about another 50% more, and those few dollars are dollars I'd gladly give up for the improvement in texture.

The almond pastry cream recipe was absolutely delicious.  I could have eaten the whole lot of it with a spoon and been on cloud nine.  Better than ice cream, and no ice cream brain freeze, either!

The recipe for the pate brisee, however, was a total bust.  I'll stick to my tried-and-true Nick Malgieri pate brisee recipe if I make this again.  Dorie's recipe kept cracking as I tried to roll it out, refused to hang together when I lifted it to put in the pan, and just wasn't as tasty overall as my go-to recipe. 

After multiple patches and much cursing, it did end up baking just fine. 

The pre-baked crust is filled with the almond pastry cream, and then the oranges are decoratively lain out over the top.  It looked so pretty at this point!  That last statement?  They call if foreshadowing in the biz....

I baked the tart for the called-upon amount of time, and it was nowhere near done.  I set the oven for another five minutes, then another five minutes, then another five minutes, then just plain forgot about it.

Oops.  Despite the heavy browning, the tart still tasted pretty nice.

However, I think next time I'll just make the cream and surreptitiously eat it all myself.