Monday, February 23, 2015

Pink Grapefruit Tart ~ Baking Chez Moi


Per Nana~
This recipe called for a few adjustments on my part because of the grapefruit, 
the one fruit that we can not eat because of the medications we both take,
 so I used blood oranges instead. The lemon-almond cream came together nicely. 
I prepared it a day ahead to chill. For some reason I thought the crémeux was going
 to be difficult but once I started it, it came together well - even after I accidentally
 dropped the thermometer in the saucepan while trying to stir. Not easy....
I substituted orange juice for the grapefruit, used Mandarin Napoléon brandy 
instead of Campari and that's where I made my mistake. Since grapefruit is quite
 tart it would have offset the sweetness of the almond cream, but using OJ with 
the brandy made it unbelievably sweet. As nice as it turned out, I found that 
my flavoring was totally off. 
I enjoyed the technique of making the crémeux, something I had not done 
before, and I followed Dorie's instructions exactly while making the 
tart dough. The dough came out perfectly and was very easy to work with. 

Per Tricia~
Expectations got me on this one. 
I expected the taste to be interesting but not necessarily over the top good. 
I was wrong - it was truly outstanding. 
I also expected that since this was a tart, and not a buche de noel or croquembouche, 
it would not be too complicated or require much preparation.
still using my son's rock collection as pie weights ~
 Boy, was I wrong. 
Very thick, the filling was not easy to get off the whisk.....
While you can make the several parts over several days, I planned to knock it 
all out on a quiet Sunday. It took the majority of that day. While I did enjoy 
doing this once, I do not plan on devoting that amount of time to a single 
pastry again. If I am spending hours in the kitchen on a non holiday, I am 
hoping to at least have a few weeknight dinners ready to go.  That said, this
 dessert  dinners definitely made the fridge a happy place:) My husband stopped 
asking if I was "still making that same dessert"...and simply said "wow".
My laziness time management issues aside, this was a delicious and 
"company worthy" dessert. I could easily understand why Dorie was
 so taken with it when she enjoyed it in Paris. 
It also reminded me of how much I enjoy pink grapefruit
 and I have already picked up a few more to savor as 
I wait for this cold weather to end. 

8 comments:

  1. Nice work ladies both of you! Nana, what a pity your flavourings were off - I can see it's a delicate balance though which is why I didn't trust myself to mess too much with it! Tricia - I agree - it's amazing but fairly time consuming...

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  2. Ladies, you both have beautiful tarts. Nana, I found out about the issue with statins and grapefruit when I took my tart to work and our PA couldn't have any. Your tart looks lovely even if the flavourings weren't quite right. Tricia, I agree with your comment that this was truly outstanding.

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  3. I love how you do these posts together! Do you ever taste-test each other's outcomes?

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  4. Wow, impressive, and I am so going to do it with blood oranges as that just sounds wonderful to me, and looks so striking with that dark red pulp. Not only impressed with the dessert, but with the organized cleanliness of that refrigerator!! :-)

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  5. Gorgeous tarts, both of them! And I completely understand re the 'still making the same dessert'. But it tastes so gooood!

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  6. Both tarts are beautiful! Sorry the orange flavour didn't work out but the blood oranges do look very pretty. This tart definitely was an exercise in time management but worth it in the end.

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  7. Loved that you both made square tarts. Lovely presentations. Tricia I like that you use your son's rocks. It was a time consuming dessert but well worth the effort. But you are right spending the whole day in the kitchen for one dessert...

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  8. Beautiful tarts! I love the square tart pans. They're so sophisticated looking. This was really time consuming, wasn't it? I'm glad I made it, but don't plan on repeating it anytime soon.

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