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.



April Daring Bakers Challenge: Spotted Dick (by Kat)

First off, remember this weekend when I mentioned "gulping down spring?" Apparently, I gulped too much. After a few weeks of a nagging cough and chest pain, which I had attributed to Doing Too Much Too Soon and a possible recurrence of childhood asthma issues, I went for a Quick Visit to the Doctor, which resulted in a Quick Visit to the Hospital, followed by a diagnosis of pneumonia.

Pneumonia in late April?!!! What the heck??!!!

All's well, though, and I only mention it because the drugs are a little bit, well, yeah.

Hi!

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

Heh, heh, I said spotted dick.
Heh heh, heh!

Moving on...

Obligatory challenge blog-checking lines: The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

This month's challenge threw a lot of Daring Bakers off their rockers. The backlash against using suet was extreme, to say the very least, and quite a few people backed out. I pity those people--this challenge was one of the most fun yet, and one that I see most influencing my future kitchen repertoire. I was going to use the word affecting, but maybe it's supposed to me effecting. I can't remember. Did I even use the right from of it's in that last sentence? I think so, but please don't hold me to it. Remember, Bet is the English Teacher--not me.

Where were we? Right. Spotted Dicks. Heh.

So, the British like to Steam Things. Steamy! Essentially, you put your cake batter and What Have You in a bowl, cover with foil, and steam in a pot on the stove for a few hours. It's called a pudding, even though it's a cake. Likewise, you make a pastry crust, line a bowl with it, put in sweet or savory pie stuffings, top with more pastry crust, cover with foil, and steam in a pot on the stove for a few hours. It's called a pudding, even if it's made with meat, and even though it looks like a pie.

Here in po-dunk nowhere, I couldn't get suet. I tried, but it didn't happen. Also, since nobody in my house eats raisins or currants, especially Raisins or Currants in Baked Goods, I didn't make spotted dick (heh, heh heh).

Instead, I made an orange marmalade pudding and a candied ginger apricot pudding.

The orange marmalade pudding wasn't very good in human terms, but the chickens love it. I think the problem arose when I substituted bagel crumbs for bread crumbs. Oddly, the resulting dessert taste Just Like Corndogs. Ewww.


The candied ginger with apricot jam rocked the world. In the above abomination I used homemade orange marmalade, and in this take on the challenge I used homemade apricot jam. In this instance, unlike the one above, the jam was not wasted. I essentially followed a Martha Stewart recipe which you can find here.

Steaming results in luscious, moist, and somehow golden cakes. What intrigues me the most are the possibilities this opens up for camp food. Using this method, I think I can reliably steam cakes in a dutch oven over a campfire, circumventing my usual problem of burned bottoms and raw interiors when I make cake on an open fire.

There's lots more to be said, and truly this challenge is worthy of a better post. Sadly, you'll have to find other Daring Bakers' posts to get that. Might I recommend Audax Artifex?

Below, you'll find the challenge as given to us by Esther.

Over and out.

This is Esther from The Lilac Kitchen!

The challenge I would like to set you this month is to try a very British dish and a very British ingredient.

The actual recipes (I am giving you a choice) are pretty simple really but the cooking method and the core ingredient are something that many people do not use or do on a regular basis if at all.

Those of you who know me might be surprised that as one of the early Alternative Daring Bakers I’m not doing a gluten-free recipe but we have just had one of those and I wanted to do a traditional British pudding and honestly a gluten-free traditional British pudding is a rare beast but the type I have chosen are very easy to convert.

These are very homely dishes but I thought that would be an interesting contrast to some of the very decorative dishes we often do and I am sure some of our members will still make them look spectacular!

Some of you will know about the British and the word pudding but for those that don't we use the word for many things:

1) Black pudding and white pudding a sort of meat and grain sausage. Black pudding uses blood as well as meat.
2) Pudding — a generic word for desert
3) Pudding — any dish cooked in a pudding bowl or pudding cloth normally steamed, boiled but sometimes baked.
4) An endearment i.e., "How are you today my pudding?"

For this challenge we are using the third meaning a dish cooked in a pudding bowl or cloth, though many of you may opt to do a sweet version in which case version two also applies!

The special ingredient is suet. Please, please don't worry if you can't get it. I will be suggesting alternatives but if you want to stretch yourselves and try some very traditional British dishes do try and source some as it does make a difference to the texture and Daring Bakers is all about trying things you wouldn't normal do or use. Please remember there are alternatives so please don’t worry if you can’t get or don’t want to use suet !

So what is suet?

It is the hard but flaky fat found on the inside of a cow or sheep around the kidneys and that area of the body. Suet in its raw form crumbles easily into small chunks so much so that my butcher says it covers his floor in bits if he doesn't have it taken out as soon as possible. In fact unless he knows he has a customer for it he has the abattoir take it out and throw it away and when I want some he gives it to me for free! It also melts at quite a low temperature, which has an effect on how it works in cooking. In some places such as the UK it is sold processed which basically means it is grated and combined with flour to keep the individual pieces from clumping together, and it becomes a sort of dried out short strands, almost granular in texture.

For people on a gluten-free diet like myself be careful as most if not all the processed stuff uses wheat flour, though the vegetarian version normally uses rice flour. As I said I get mine direct from the butcher and I suggest if you want to try this challenge fully you go down to your local butcher and ask them if they can source some for you. If they can it will not be expensive as it is just fat and they might even give it you for free!.

For those going “Yuck! Fat from the inside of an animal … no thank you!”, I have some good news. There is a vegetable suet available here and indeed anyone can substitute a hard, white vegetable fat. Wikipedia says the UK vegetable suet is made from palm oil so something of that ilk would work. I am led to believe a vegetable shortening, like Crisco will give you a similar effect. So please feel free to use whatever you feel most comfortable with or can get. Lard is also a possibility. Ideally steer clear of things like butter or soft margarine as you will get a very different texture and taste however if you are not comfortable using any of the fats I've suggested I am providing some links to recipes using butter right at the bottom (and one vegan) but read all the tips before that anyway You could even try substituting something like Coconut oil if you wish but in both these cases try a sponge pudding first as they are more tolerant of such changes.

However, back to the real stuff assuming you feel happy to use it. If you manage to get some from the butcher you will end up with something very much like this.

The packet stuff looks like this both the meat and veggy versions which is probably easier for most people to deal with if you can get it.

However if you are going the whole hog and trying the fresh stuff then the fat then needs separating from the membrane that holds it loosely together. Personally I normally just pull it apart with my hands and crumble the fat off the membrane but if you wish to make sure you completely remove everything except the pure fat you need to render it.

To render the fat, chop or grate it up and put in a pan. Then you slowly heat it over a low flame until it is completely melted. Carefully, because hot fat is very much not something you want to get on your skin, pour it into a sieve lined with cheesecloth to remove all the little bits of membrane and such like from the pure fat. If it still has bits in reheat until liquid and restrain.

So once you have your suet or suet substitute, what are we going to make with it? The answer to that is of course suet pudding. However I am giving you not one but two forms of suet pudding and both can be either savory or sweet so you have lots of options to play about with the idea.

The two basic types are a suet crust pudding with a filling or a suet sponge pudding. Examples of a pudding with a crust are a steak and kidney pudding or a Sussex pond pudding and examples of the sponge pudding are spotted dick, Christmas pudding and college pudding.

Both types are traditionally steamed in a pudding basin for at least an hour and this is a technique I know some people rarely, if ever, use. However it is very simple and can be done with the simplest of equipment. All you really need is a reasonable size saucepan with a lid, ideally with a heat proof plate or a steamer rack to go in the bottom of the pan and heat proof bowl or similar container to cook the pudding in. You can even go more basic than that and wrap the pudding in a cloth and hang it in the pot of water to boil!

Other uses for suet include dumplings for stew, making mincemeat for mince-pies, mixing with seeds to make fat balls for birds and as an extremely high calorie survival food for extreme environments such as arctic expeditions.

So the required elements of this challenge are:

1) to make a suet pudding using real suet or as close a replacement as you can manage or is acceptable to you; and
2) to cook it by steaming or if you want to be even more traditional by boiling tied up in a cloth.

Due to the short amount of time I ended up having to get this challenge together I have not tried out all the recipes recently, however they are all ones I have either used in the past or from sources I know to be extremely good for these sort of recipes.

Recipe Source: Recipes come from the following sources: Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course, The pudding club (www.puddingclub.com), Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management and the Dairy Book of Home Cooking and my family’s recipe notes!

Blog-checking lines: The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

Posting Date: April 27, 2010

Notes: Fresh suet should be kept in the fridge or do what I do and freeze it. I crumble off what I want as I go straight from the freezer. The boxed stuff can live in the cupboard.

The easiest way to steam a pudding is in a dedicated steamer as the water is kept away from the pudding so it can’t boil over. If, however, you don’t have a steamer use a pan large enough to easily fit the bowl you are cooking. Don’t fill the water more than about a third of the way up the bowl or it may boil over and into the bowl. Keep an eye and top up as needed with boiling water.

You need to lift the bowl off the bottom of the pan. This can be done with a steamer stand, an upturned plate or even crumpled up kitchen foil — anything that can stand being in boiling water and lifts the bowl off the bottom of the pan will work.

Make sure you have a well-fitted lid on the pan as you want the steam to cook the pudding not to boil off.

Make sure you put a pleat in the foil or paper you cover the bowl with to allow for expansion and then tie down tightly with string.

This is a bowl ready for the steamer, note the handle made from the string that also ties it together around the top.. this makes it very much easier to lift out when hot and is well worth doing.

This bowl is actually a Christmas pudding I made before Christmas which is also a suet pudding but unlike most made to keep for months rather than used straight away.

Variations allowed: You are allowed completely free rein on flavours and fillings and I am very much looking forward to seeing where the Daring Bakers take a very traditional dish like this.

Any variations due to restricted diets are of course allowed. Due to the way these recipes are cooked it’s very easy to substitute for gluten-free flours and get very much the same results as wheat. Do try your favorite flour mix as these are much more tolerant of flour changes than most pasty.

They can be made vegetarian and even vegan just by using the vegetarian replacement suet and an appropriate flavour/filling.

Preparation time: Preparation time is 5 to 20 minutes depending on the filling. Cooking time is 1 to 5 hours so do this on a day you have jobs around the house to do or are popping in and out as you need to occasionally check the pan hasn’t boiled dry! However it is otherwise a very low time requirement dish.

Equipment required:
• 2 pint (1 litre) pudding bowl or steam-able containers to contain a similar amount they should be higher rather than wide and low
Traditional pudding bowl so you know what is normally used.

• Steamer or large pan, ideally with a steaming stand, upturned plate or crumpled up piece of kitchen foil
• Mixing bowl
• Spoon
• Measuring cups or scales
• Foil or grease proof paper to cover the bowl
• String

Type 1 Puddings — suet crusts.

Pudding Crust for both Savoury Pudding or Sweet Pudding (using suet or a suet substitute):

Ingredients

(250 grams/12 ounces) Self-raising flour (Note* If you cannot find self-raising flour, use a combination of all-purpose flour and baking powder.)
(175 grams/6 ounces) Shredded suet or suet substitute (i.e., Vegetable Suet, Crisco, Lard)
(a pinch) Salt and pepper (Note* If making a savory dish, can be replaced with spices for sweet if wished.)
(210 millilitres/a little less than a cup) Water (Note* You can use a milk or a water and milk mix for a richer pastry.)

1. Mix the flour and suet together.
2. Season the flour and suet mixture with salt and pepper if savory and just a bit of salt and/or spices if sweet.
3. Add the water, a tablespoonful at a time, as you mix the ingredients together. Make up the pastry to firm an elastic dough that leaves the bowl clean. The liquid amounts are only an estimate and most recipes just say water to mix.

4. Don’t over handle the pastry or it will be too hard.
5. Reserve a quarter for the lid and roll out the rest and line a well-greased bowl.
6. At this point add your filling.. a couple of options are give below but have fun and go wild!
7. Roll the final piece of pastry out into a circle big enough to cover the top of the basin, dampen the edges and put in position on the pudding, pinching the edges together to seal.
8. Seal well and cover with a double sheet of foil – pleated in the centre to allow room for expansion while cooking. Secure with string, and place it in a steamer over boiling water.
9. Steam for up to 5 hours, you may need to add more boiling water halfway through or possibly more often. There is a lot of leeway in this steaming time and different recipes give different steaming times. Delia Smith says 5 hours for Steak and kidney where as Mrs Beeton says 2.5 for a similar dish! One way to tell that it is cooked is when the pastry changes colour and goes from white to a sort of light golden brown. It is also hard to over steam a pudding so you can leave it bubbling away until you are ready.

This one is a steak and onion one cooked for 1.5 hours.

This sort of pastry can also be used as a topping for a baked meat pie and becomes quite a light crusty pastry when baked.

Savoury Pudding Filling options: steak and kidney pudding.

1 full amount of suet crust (see recipe above)
(450 grams/about 1 pound) Chuck steak
(225 grams/about 1/2 a pound) Ox kidney
1 medium-sized onion
2 teaspoons well-seasoned flour
splash of Worcestershire sauce

1. Chop the steak and kidney into fairly small cubes, toss them in seasoned flour, then add them to the pastry lined basin.
2. Pop the onion slices in here and there.
3. Add enough cold water to reach almost to the top of the meat and sprinkle in a few drops of Worcestershire sauce and season with salt and pepper.
4. Follow the rest of the instructions in the crust recipe to finish pudding.
5. Cook for at least 2.5 hours (Mrs Beeton) up to 5 hours (Delia Smith).

Sweet Pudding Options: Sussex Pond Pudding

1 amount of suet pastry (see recipe above)
(120 grams/4.2 ounces) Demerara Sugar
(120 grams/4.2 ounces) unsalted butter
1 large lemon

1. Cut the butter into small pieces and put half in the basin with half the sugar.
2. Prick the whole lemon (preferably one with a thin skin) all over, using a thick skewer.
3. Place on top of the butter and sugar in the basin.
4. Cover with the rest of the butter and sugar.
5. Finish building the pudding as per the pastry recipe.
6. Steam for 3 ½ hours, or longer (for a really tender lemon), adding more water if needed.
7. To serve, turn the pudding into a dish with a deep rim, when you slice into it the rich lemon sauce will gush out.
8. Make sure each person is served some of the suet crust, lemon and tangy luscious sauce.

Type 2 puddings – Steamed Suet Pudding, sponge type.

(100 grams/4 ounces) All-purpose flour
(1/4 teaspoon) salt
(1.5 teaspoons) Baking powder
(100 grams/4 ounces) breadcrumbs
(75 grams/3 ounces) Caster sugar
(75 grams/ 3 ounces) Shredded suet or suet substitute (i.e., Vegetable Suet, Crisco, Lard)
(1) large egg
(6 to 8 tablespoons) Cold milk

1. Sift flour, salt and baking powder into bowl.
2. Add breadcrumbs, sugar and suet.
3. Mix to a soft batter with beaten egg and milk
4. Turn into a buttered 1 litre/ 2pint pudding basin and cover securely with buttered greaseproof paper or aluminum foil.
5. Steam steadily for 2.5 to 3 hours
6. Turn out onto warm plate, Serve with sweet sauce to taste such as custard, caramel or a sweetened fruit sauce.

Variants:
Spotted Dick - Add 75g/ 3oz currants and 25g/1 oz of mixed chopped peel with the sugar.
Syrup or Treacle or Marmalade Pudding – put 2 Tablespoons of golden syrup, treacle or marmalade at the bottom of the bowl before adding pudding mix.
My Fair Lady Pudding – Add finely grated rind of 1 medium orange or lemon with the sugar.
Ginger Pudding – replace the sugar with 100g/4oz of treacle, and add 1/2 tsp ground ginger.

Additional Information:

Suet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suet.

Suet substitutes: http://www.practicallyedible.com/edible.nsf/pages/suet.

Vegetable suet: http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/Dictionary/V/Vegetable-suet-6708.aspx.

Delia Smith shows you how to make suet pastry with step-by-step photos here: (http://www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook/baking/how-to-make-suet-pastry.html).

Video of the whole process of making a suet crust pudding.
http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-steak-mushroom-pudding-317626/

Video of making a steamed pudding: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afQ6g0R8pMc.

A very good place to find recipes for many British puddings is the Pudding Club website http://www.puddingclub.com/.

Steamed Pudding: http://www.puddings.net/desserts/puddings/steamedpuddings/preparing.shtml.

Mrs Beeton of course had many suet based puddings in her book and thefoody.com lists many of them. Some are described as boiled but nearly all can be steamed in a bowl in the same way as the full recipes I've give here including Staffordshire Fig Pudding: (http://thefoody.com/mrsbpudding/staffordshire.html), boiled raisin Pudding (http://thefoody.com/mrsbpudding/boiledraisin.html), Boiled Rhubarb Pudding (http://thefoody.com/mrsbpudding/rhubarbpudding.html), ginger pudding (http://thefoody.com/mrsbpudding/gingerpudding.html) and several more.
Christmas Pudding

Bacon and Leek Pudding:
http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2009/03/01/116229/Bacon-and-Leek-Suet-Pudding.htm

Butter based versions of steamed pudding

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3157/rhubarb-steamed-pudding
http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/sweet/steamed-treacle-sp...
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/8185/sticky-gingerbread-pudding-with-...

Found a vegan one I can't vouch for it but thought it might be a starting point for someone.
http://www.scarlettdesign.co.uk/go-vegan/pudding.html

The whole of Mrs Beeton on line
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/beeton/isabella/household/
and just the puddings
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/beeton/isabella/household/chapter27.html

March Daring Bakers Challenge: Orange Tian (by Kat)

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.

A tian, as best as I can tell, is any layered fruit or vegetable dish. I was already familiar with the more traditional vegetable tian, wherein long and broad slices of zucchini or eggplant are layered with colorful veggies like red and yellow bell peppers, carrots, and other healthy flavorful crap. A tian, in my mind, was merely a trick to make folks think that eating veggies was fun. I was wrong.

Why didn't anyone ever bother to tell me about DESSERT tians? Hmmm? Hmmm????


So, instead of, say, eggplant, you plop a cookie down. Then, instead of, say, carrots, you spread on some orange marmalade (see? fruit! it's healthy!). Then, instead of, say, peppers, you schmear some whipped cream on. Then, to continue the healthy theme, you prettily layer orange pieces that soaked overnight in a caramelized sugar syrup. Finally, instead of vinaigrette, you pour on more orange-caramel sauce.

I do love a good health-food recipe, don't you?

What did I learn this month?

1) stabilized whipped cream. neat trick resulting form the addition of gelatin to whipped cream.

2) sable cookies. yum!

3) orange marmalade. hated the stuff since forever. made my own for this challenge and simply loved it! if you think you dislike marmalade, please try making your own!

Wash and slice some oranges. Remove any seeds, but keep the peel on.
Cover with water, boil ten minutes, drain.
Repeat two more times.

Finely dice up the oranges, and then measure
(preferably by weight, but volume is okay, too.)

Add an equal amount of sugar.
Boil hard, until a spoonful on a cool plate gels.

Make your stabilized whipped cream.

Line your ramekins with plastic wrap.

Then assemble your tian.


Yummy!

(P.S. Throw another cookies on top, and eat them frozen.
Think creamsicle crossed with an ice-cream sandwich...)

Here's the recipe:

For the Pate Sablee:

Ingredients U.S. Imperial Metric Instructions for Ingredients
2 medium-sized egg yolks at room temperature
granulated sugar 6 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon; 2.8 oz; 80 grams
vanilla extract ½ teaspoon
Unsalted butter ¼ cup + 3 tablespoons; 3.5 oz; 100 grams ice cold, cubed
Salt 1/3 teaspoon; 2 grams
All-purpose flour 1.5 cup + 2 tablespoons; 7 oz; 200 grams
baking powder 1 teaspoon ; 4 grams

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 homogeneous 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 U.S. Imperial Metric Instructions for Ingredients
Freshly pressed orange juice ¼ cup + 3 tablespoons; 3.5 oz; 100 grams
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 measure 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).

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.

For the Caramel:

Ingredients U.S. Metric Imperial Instructions for Ingredients
granulated sugar 1 cup; 7 oz; 200 grams
orange juice 1.5 cups + 2 tablespoons; 14 oz; 400 grams

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:

Ingredients U.S. Metric Imperial Instructions for Ingredients
heavy whipping cream 1 cup; 7 oz; 200 grams
3 tablespoons of hot water
1 tsp Gelatin
1 tablespoon of confectioner's sugar
orange marmalade (see recipe above) 1 tablespoon

In a small bowl, add the gelatin and hot water, stirring well until the gelatin dissolves. Let the gelatin 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 gelatin 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:

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 snugly 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.