Making Blood Orange Tarts with Chantilly Cream
Let’s be honest – the only thing to love about February in New England is the arrival of blood orange season.
This year has been particularly brutal, with epic snowstorm after epic snowstorm, temperatures in the single digits, several feet of snow per storm, and the fact that national media has given our winter a nickname, “Snowmageddon”, and most likely a theme song to go with it. You know it’s bad when all of your West Coast friends keep texting you to make sure you are still alive.
But I digress…. back to those delightful short-seasoned orbs. Named for their incredibly vibrant red internal coloring, blood oranges, or Moro Oranges, are quite aromatic and the taste has a subtle hint of raspberry. Just waiting to be turned into a dessert, right? Right.
I’ve got to admit, half the fun of eating blood oranges is watching the look on people’s faces when you tell them what it is. They get this confused expression on their face – not sure if they should be intrigued or disgusted. And then there was that one time my child took one to school in her lunchbox, was chastised by her elementary school teacher for calling it a “blood” orange and forbidden to say its name again. Apparently, a lack of education on the teacher’s part somehow translated to my child conducting herself inappropriately. Huh. Go figure.
Crap, lost my train of thought again. So back to what you’re really here for – a recipe on how to make Blood Orange Tarts from scratch. Although a bit time consuming to make, the feedback from my army of guinea pigs and blind taste-testers has universally been “yum”, “more”, and “why did you have to make them so small”.
All of the above images are visual steps on how to make a candied orange peel. You will find the step by step instructions below. I decided to start with a basic tart recipe and jazz it up with the addition of fresh blood orange zest, then make a blood orange custard for the tart filling and top it with chantilly cream and candied orange peel.
The most important aspects of this recipe are to always use the freshest ingredients you can find. Otherwise, why bother cooking from scratch? I mean, really. Measuring your ingredients on a scale and sifting dry ingredients together helps nail the perfect flaky crust, and bringing your eggs and butter to room temperature before beginning the recipe also helps you achieve a successful tart. Start with zesting and juicing 6 ripe blood oranges, make sure you have a solid collection of eggs on hand for the custard, turn up the music, and have fun!
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- 1 lb All Purpose Flour
- 2 oz All Purpose Flour
- 6 oz Confectioner's Sugar
- 2 Eggs
- 8.5 oz Butter
- Zest From Blood Orange
- Flour For Dusting
- Butter For Greasing
- 9 Eggs
- 14 oz Granulated Sugar
- 5 Blood Oranges
- 9 oz Heavy Cream
- Peel Garnish
- Blood Orange Peels
- 2 cups Granulated Sugar
- 1 cup Water
- 16 oz Heavy Cream
- 1/2 cup Confectioner's Sugar
- 1/2 Fresh Vanilla Bean Scraped
Ingredients
Dough
Custard
Chantilly Cream
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- Bring butter to room temperature
- Pre-heat oven to 350
- Measure flour, sugar and butter on scale
- Sift flour and powdered sugar into mixing bowl
- Slice butter into pats, add to mixing bowl
- Mix on low until overall consistency resembles coarse corn meal
- Make a well in the center, add orange zest
- Beat eggs separately and add to bowl
- Knead dough with hands until well incorporated
- Wrap dough ball in plastic wrap & refrigerate for 30 minutes
- Grease and flour a fluted tart mold
- Roll dough to approximately 1/8" thickness & fold into tart form
- Dock dough and press into fluting
- Blind bake with beans for weight for 10 minutes
- Remove beans and bake until lightly golden brown.
- Whisk the eggs with sugar and the remaining orange zest
- Stir in the blood orange juice, then fold in the cream
- Remove any froth
- Reduce oven temp to 250
- Fill hot tart shells with custard
- Bake for 30 minutes
- Combine heavy cream, vanilla bean and confectioner's sugar in mixer until stiff peaks form
- Fill top of custard tarts with cream
- To Make Candied Orange Peel Garnish
- slow boil 2 cups sugar with 1 cup water
- Add peels to simmering simple syrup
- Cook until slightly translucent (15 min or so)
- Remove from syrup and lay on parchment-covered cookie sheet in coils
- Dry peels in a low oven overnight (175 with door cracked) or by using a dehydrator
- Slice peels and sprinkle on top of chantilly cream tarts
To make a basic tart dough, simply exclude adding the orange zest
ITEMS WE USED TO MAKE THIS RECIPE
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