For recipe, head on over to the The Daring Kitchen... Or just click
[ HERE ] if you're lazy.
Italian strawberries and ripe, juicy oranges? Yes, please!
To be honest, I'm not much of an orange person. It's not that I don't like them - I do - but for some inexplicable reason I'm ridiculously picky when it comes to oranges. In order for me actually eat one, it has have to have the exact right texture, scent, colour and, obviously, flavour. I don't know how many oranges I've peeled just to end up throwing away throughout my 20 (21 in a week! *hint hint*) years on this planet... All I know is that it's far too many.
No. I didn't blanch the oranges. And yes. that was a poor choice. I'm not the brightest crayon in the box. ;)
For some reason though, despite the challenge being an orangeydessertish one (and a tian at that, I'd never even heard of a tian before this challenge, and when I did my research all that popped up on google were vegetable and seafood creations. My inital reaction was "Vad i helvete?!" <- don't google that. It'll ruin my image.) this challenge made me feel more excited than I have in a long time. I have no idea why, but I'm thankful it did. The end result was not only goregeous, but utterly and completly delicious. I'll definitely be making this dessert again!
Segmenting oranges gets messy. See: LINK
Next time I make it though, I will NOT be making everything but the Patee Sable in in the middle of the night. Granted, the finished dessert did make a lovely midnight snack, but that was not my intention. Daylight pictures > Nighttime pictures. End of story. I also won't be making it in a foil-piepan. Unless I haven't bough proper cookie cutters until then, in which case I will. xD
If that's not sex in a food processor, I don't know what to believe in anymore.
That, my dears, would be Pate Sablee in the making. It's delicious. I made mine using salted butter (blasphemy?), vanilla sugar (let's just say that vanilla extract and I are no longer dating) and an eff-woo attitude towards my measuring tools.
Yum. Yum. YUM. That pretty much sums up my feelings about the PS.
Oh and just for the record - if you click the pics you'll see larger sizes of the same images. Just a little fyi. :) Except for the image above unfortunately.. all my pictures of the finished patee sable were as blurry as a picture of the Loch Ness monster. But enough about that, let's talk about all the lovely things I learned when making this dessert... All but one are represented in the image below.
1.2.3 Not only you and me, got one eighty degrees and I'm caught in between countin' 1,2,3.
1. Segmenting small oranges takes forever. Especially when using an oversized, blunt knife.
2. Talking to your sister while whipping cream is a horrible idea that will lead to a bad case of overwhipping. And you know what? There is nothing sexy whatsoever about overwhipped whipped cream. Except maybe the flavour.
3. When the recipe for the marmalade says "Blanch the orange slices 3 times" & "finely mince them" ...don't be creative (a.k.a lazy). Really, don't. I ended up wasting pretty much all of my marmalade when separating the orange slices from the finished product and it took forever. The marmalade did end up superyummy though. :) (once the bitter orangeslices were removed that is)
4. Caramel+Malin don't go together well. At all. I ended up making a gigantic mess on the stove, burn myself, waste a lot of juice (and sugar). It was a disaster and I failed miserbly, but that's okay, it still tasted great.
Looks can be deceiving.
I talk too much. SO. Over to more intresting things: THE FINISHED PRODUCT. (what, no standing ovation? Pfft.) Which was delicious. I pretty much ate the entire thing all by myself. In less than 24 hours. It was so good, I didn't worry about the calories at all. Not even once.
Is it too obvious that the strawberry is a desperate attempt to try and look artsy? xD
Sooo delish! I'll definitely be making this again :)
Yummyness on a plate, with and without saucy deliciousness.
I like to think of it as my own (now deceased) personal little edible [Glow in the Dark] version of [ Pac Man ]. In other words - complete and utter awesomeness.
I mean honestly. Could ANYONE say no to that?
I sure as hell couldn't. :)
EDIT: ...Damnit. I forgot about my background not being white. Isch. Not okay. Blergh. I'll fix it. When I get the time. So probably never. >_>
