TWD: The Most Extraodinary French Non-Lemon Cream Tart

For the first time pretty well ever, there is no picture to show what I made. I took a few. I won't show them though. Bad is an understatement.

I have to start out by saying this: Dorie, I still love ya! I'm still very open to being adopted by you, or at least being one of your nieces, who gets to visit alot! And this recipe had me frustrated and scratching my head in confusion. It can't have been you, I must have either done something wrong or my large eggs were very different from your large eggs.

Yes, I had problems. Several problems.

First, I can't read, so my plan to make it Saturday for friends coming over for dinner did not work. Forgot to include the 4 hours of chilling time in my calculations. That was the minor problem.

My next problem was the cream. I started the cream yesterday morning, all my ingredients out and at temperature, my thermometer, my blender, my strainer at the ready. Even the plastic wrap for chilling was ready. Dorie's instructions said about 10 minutes or so until the cream reaches 180F and will begin to thicken. I had decided to go with a blood orange cream instead of a lemon one, so had this beautiful dark red juice ready to go in with my eggs and sugar, then to be whisked over a double boiler. Forty minutes later, whisking the entire time, I still had not reached 180F, and that cream was not thickening!


Another 10 minutes, with me still not dressed, needing to have been out the door 15 minutes before hand, I gave up and walked away. Threw on some clean clothes so I was not driving the husband to work in my pjs and got ready to leave.

At the last second I decided to check the temperature of the cream and, a miracle! It finally reached 180F! Though it didn't seem that thick to me, I strained it into the blender and left it to cool while I drove. Came home and blended in the butter, not really liking the color anymore. That bright, vivid red? Not so much. More like bleh, light brown, not appealing looking at all!

However, it was alot of work to get it to where it was, so I set it into the fridge for an over night chilling and went about my day. Today I tackled the tart shell, which I had my doubts about as I was trying to press it into my tart pan (which is not a removable bottom, had never been used before, and may not get used again!) The tart, though, came out golden and beautiful!

One of my last problems was trust. I did not trust myself, as I looked at the cream in the fridge and thought, "I should just put it into wine glasses and top it somehow with the tart crust. Make cookie spoons, or crumble the tart into it and make a parfait." No, I ignored those thoughts and instead poured a very loose cream onto my tart shell. No smoothing needed at all, it ran all the way out to the edge of the crust! And ran right down into the pan when I attempted to cut a piece for serving!

Like I said, I love Dorie, I'm sure it was me. Though I do hear there were others who had problems as well - those aren't my fault though.

My husband just nodded his head when I told him that now that I've tried and failed, he knows I will try it again until I get it right.

No blood oranges next time though - not only did they not look good at all in the cream, I did not like the flavor. The crust was great, nice and crisp, with a buttery crumb, but the cream was just not right for me. It was good for my husband, who had three slopping helpings of it, despite the appearance.

Next week's recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie was announced earlier, and I'm so much more looking forward to this one than I was the lemon cream. Hey, maybe next time I'll actually make lemon cream!

Don't forget to go see our hostess for this weeks recipe, Mary of Starting From Scratch. I bet she has pretty pictures to look at!