Martha has an eight page spread on the alchemy between tart orange and sweet cocoa. The article included 5 complex recipes - some with various components. We tackled it the only way we knew how - by having a party.
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| The invites went out. |
On the menu:
We decided to divide and conquer and had mixed results in our preparations. Ali made the fondue, warm chocolate cake and orange creme anglais, and blood orange with caramel sauce and Jacqui was in charge of the candied grapefruit peel, glaceed orange slices, roasted orange tart, and orange-scented olive oil cake. This made sense in mid-February when we divided up the tasks - the party is at Ali's so Jacqui should make the stuff that won't end up on the car floor during the drive over. Unfortunately, in practice, Jacqui ended up with the most time consuming items and Ali ended up with all of the last minute items - terrible when you're hosting a party. So, Friday night, Ali tackled what she could, the creme anglaise.
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| Pre-party jitters? No. Curdled orange creme anglaise. |
Ali: Grrrr... Martha left out one crucial component to her recipe: You-cannot-let-the-creme-anglaise-boil. I learned this the hard way and had to start over. You should have heard the language. It was as if I worked in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay. (Christmas Story)
Jacqui: Meanwhile, I started my 5 hour cooking marathaon, had my grapefruit peeled and oranges sliced and in their respective syrups, olive oil cake mixed, tart shell made and chilling, and Cara Cara oranges sliced and roasting in the oven. Two hours later.....
...my first disaster. I followed this recipe precisely, but the roasted oranges were more burnt than roasted and still tasting strongly of rind. Honestly, I can't see how even if they were perfectly roasted they would not have tasted of rind. They were, in a word, disgusting!
And now lets talk specifics:
1. The blood orange with caramel sauce and cocoa nibs:
I had never worked with blood oranges before. They are amazing! A mixture of the deepest reds and boldest oranges - try one, you won't regret it. The recipe said that it'll serve four, but I managed to squeak 10 bite-sized tastes into small ramekins. The sauce is actually a mixture of caramel and blood orange juice making it light and refreshing. A few of us thought the cocoa nibs were an unnecessary addition and thought it would have been nicer with a tiny scoop of ice-cream. One note about the recipe: Martha says to be careful when adding the juice to the caramel. I was, but I wasn't sure what I was being careful for... and then I knew. The juice was cold and instantly solidified the caramel. Not helpful. Instructions that said something to the effect of: Add juice to caramel gradually to avoid solidifying. That's helpful. A solid sauce is difficult to work with. Luckily, you can remelt caramel and be on your merry way.
2. Orange-Scented Olive Oil Cake with Orange Compote and Chocolate Ganache:
The cake itself was easy to make. With no loaf pan in the required size, I went for this unique cake pan - a gift from my step mother. I thought the indentation on top would would work nicely to hold the blood orange compote, which it did. Sectioning the blood oranges was a nightmare! I made a huge mistake by peeling the oranges and trying to section the way you'd normally eat an orange. This didn't work at all. I had what looked like a blood orange massacre all over my kitchen. As I got to my last orange with no where near the amount of juice I needed, I decided to try cutting the rind off, and sectioning from the back. As I was in the middle of doing this, I actually remembered having seen instructions long ago from Martha's show or magazine about how to section oranges this way. I recall thinking at the time, "how ridiculous, why would anyone want to section oranges." Sorry Martha. Anyway, I liked this cake, but not sure I liked it enough to make again. If I did, I would leave off the chocolate ganache - I think I just like my orange and chocolate separate.
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| Hmmm, looked better in person. |
3. Chocolate Roasted Orange Tart:
With inedible roasted oranges that were supposed to top this tart, I had to improvise. I decided to use the remaining Cara Cara oranges (also really beautiful and tasty, by the way) and my newly discovered (rediscoverd?) sectioning technique to top the tart with fresh orange slices. I started out overlapping the sections, which looked so pretty, but I quickly ran out of orange sections and had to spread them out. The tart ended up being pretty good, but would have been really good with more fresh oranges. It just needed a better ratio to go with the crust.
4. Warm chocolate cake with orange creme anglaise:
Between the chatter and the wine, we completely overlooked taking a photo of the warm chocolate cake and orange creme anglais. The chocolate cake was simple to make and tied as a second favorite. You already know my challenge with the creme anglais, but its hint of orange was so subtle, that when coupled with the chocolate, it wasn't noticeable. If I had to make it again, I'd leave out the orange zest and use a vanilla bean instead.
5. Chocolate fondue with clementines, candied grapefruit peel, and glaceed orange slices:
The fondue. Oh, the fondue:
Yep, that's a knife sticking straight up. Not typically how you think of fondue, is it? It remained liquid for no more than 5 minutes. And then it turned into a very solid solid. Martha didn't recommend this, but it should have been kept warm during service. Or, I should have served pre-dipped candied grapefruit peel and glaceed orange slices. Martha's instructions just didn't work.
The candied grapefruit peel and glaceed orange slices were something fun to try and were really easy. If we tried this again, we agreed that we'd skip the grapefruit peel (still tasted too much like peel) and use the candied sugar syrup mixture with the orange slices. The glacee syrup left the oranges a little too wet to be useful in a fondue or, frankly, very appetizing. Candied oranges, dipped in the chocolate probably would have worked well.
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| Will our guests ever want to eat chocolate and orange again? |
The Envelope Please: So we asked each of our ten guests to rank their favorite dishes. The blood orange with caramel sauce was the overwhelming favorite and received 6 votes, the chocolate fondue with clementines, candied grapefruit peel, glaceed orange slices and the warm chocolate cake with orange creme anglaise each received 2 votes. The olive oil cake with Orange Compote and Chocolate Ganache ranked as the second most favorite for many - leaving the poor little chocolate roasted orange tart out of the running. If you ask us - the only dish we'd make again is the blood orange with caramel sauce - it's easy and tasty. A great combination.
The biggest success of the evening was something we did not cook. Martha has an article on dispelling your "preconceived notions" about flower arranging. We know so little about flower arranging, we didn't even understand this comment. One featured floral designer said, "We hope to make flowers less aristocratic." Umm. OK. So, we bought three bouquets from Trader Joes to see what we could come up with. Neither of us had ever used oasis foam or done anything other than stick flowers in a vase. This was uncharted ground and then, in a sea of curdled creme anglais and burnt roasted oranges, something finally went right.
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| A friend of ours actually thought we had ordered this especially for the fete. Love her!! |
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A big thank you to our guests; for your opinions and your support for our new venture.
Ali and Jacq
