Blood Orange Tart

You cannot really call last January and February easy months, well not for me, anyway.

Many hours spent in the hospital, stress, sadness and very little sleep.

Not in a mood for a lot of cooking or taking pictures, the only thing I was wishing for was some sleep without nightmares and without the continuous angst caused by the possibility of the call to wake you up in the middle of the night bringing you the bad news.
All is now finished though and we have entered into another period where your emotions are numb and you try slowly to come back to reality.
Not as easy as it may sound. Still you need a lot of support even though you deny it.

Also I have to add that these months really showed me who is really on my side and who is not. Not that I was surprised but there was always a little hope. Now the hope is gone and as we say here the masks are off... It is carnival time in Greece anyway...

So, let's talk about other things now.

For many years I have been trying to find the absolutely best dough for a tart. A simple dough, buttery and all, that would come up very flaky after baking and not saggy especially when you have added rather wet fillings. Was almost like looking for the holy grail.

But unlike the holy grail I was able to find such a recipe. I found it in a book written by Kate McDermott, called the "Art of Pie". it only has 3 ingredients (5 if you add the salt and sugar), does not require a mixer, has a healthy ratio between flour and butter and it is as much about the ingredients as the actual way to make the dough and roll it.

I will make a video that will explain things more...

With this base I constructed a nice sweet tart and filled it up with blood oranges.. cut thinly... not boiled.. as simple as that.
It is a simple recipe that you can make with any type of citrus fruit and I plan to make it with tangerines in the future as well.

So, I have to admit that this recipe made me happy. It was as if it patted me on the back and made my insides feel calm and sweet... And you have no idea how much I needed that.
So... Let's see what we will need!

Diffuculty: 2 of 3

Duration:1 hour prep and 40 minutes baking

Serves:8

Ingredients

For the dough

370g of regular flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 tblsp. sugar

200g butter very cold cut in 1 cm cubes

120 g of water and 1-2 tblsp more

For the filling

2 blood oranges

1/2 a lemon

400g of sugar

5 medium eggs (one separated)

pinch of salt

Method

For the filling

Wash and dry the fruit.

With the help of a mandoline or very sharp knife we cut the fruit in half and then thinly reserving the juice

Put the fruit with the juice in a bowl and after mixing them up leave them in a fridge for over 6 hours. Better overnight.

I would advise you to prepare the dough the previous night and leave it in the fridge as well.

So, next day we strain the mixture and add the juice in a mixer bowl with the 4 eggs and the extra yolk and we mix for a few minutes till it becomes frothy.. Also we add the salt and mix a bit more.

For the dough

We add water with ice cubes in a bowl.
It is advisable to keep the flour in a bag in the fridge as well to keep it nice and chilled.

We put the flour, salt, sugar and butter in a bowl and start working it with our fingers or with a couple of bench scrapers. The idea is to mix the butter and flour but leave the butter in pieces starting from the size of a pea to the size of an almond.

Do not overwork the butter and flour.

Add 120g of water and mix it in with a fork.

Squeeze some of the dough between your fingers to see if you can form it in a ball. if not add a little bit more water spoonful at a time and mix it in with the fork.

When you can squeeze all the loose dough pieces into one, mix it in your hands for a few seconds, form it into a ball, cut it in half, form each half into a disk of about 10 cm of diameter and wrap it in cling film. Keep in the fridge for at least an hour.

For the tart

Preheat oven at 220 C.

Roll out the dough into a rough circle 30cm of diameter.
Some tips about rolling the dough. Place the roller at the middle of the disk and roll forward till 1 cm from the end of the dough. Turn the dough 45 degrees and repeat until you end up with a circle of 30 cm in diameter.

Lay the dough in a 26 cm tart pan.

Spread the pieces of fruit evenly on the tart and empty the contents of the mixing bowl in the tart as well.

Roll the second piece of dough and place it on the pan.

Using your fingers unite the two and cut away any excess dough.

Beat the extra egg white with some water and brush it over the dough.

Using a knife cut a few slits on the dough for the steam to escape.

Bake for 15 minutes, turn down the heat to 190 and continue baking for 20-25 more minutes.

10 minutes before the end of baking sprinkle some sugar evenly on the tart.

Let it cool down completely before cutting it in pieces to serve.