Orange Tian

The Daring Bakers' challenge this month was Orange Tian. I had never heard of it before, but it looked good.  This is an excellent dessert for a warm, sunny day (or a cold, cloudy day if you're needing something to up your spirits).  There are a lot of steps to this dessert, some of which 'require' an over-nighter.  But I wasn't in the mood to let it sit over night, so I started it early in the morning and finished later in the afternoon. Same concept right? I agree. Find the entire challenge with recipes HERE.  
I started with the orange marmalade, which I forgot to take a picture of, but it looked like orange jell-o with bits of oranges in it.  

The next task was to segment oranges. This was new to me, but fun to learn. Here's a YouTube video that demonstrates.   


Then I made the caramel. No photo, because it was a disaster. The directions say once the sugar starts to bubble and foam, add the orange juice. Well, when you add something cold to sugar that is smoldering hot, it's going to shrivel up and look awful. Luckily I felt patient that day and reheated the concoction.  It ended up tasting fine, but was not caramel-like at all. Maybe it wasn't suppose to?

As I let everything soak in the fridge, I baked the pate sablee. This is basically a sugar cookie and ends up being the bottom of the dessert. The dough is pretty tasty.

Mmm... Butter.

Next is the whipped cream and assembly of dessert!

Let it sit in the freezer for a few minutes (ok, maybe a half hour) and TA DA!

Creamy, fresh - with a crispy crust. Yum. If I were to make it again, I would segment at least one more orange. I think mine were smaller than the recipe called for. That way I could make the top more pretty and packed tight.