After seeing some of your photos, I'm almost embarrassed to show mine. I'm definitely not going to win any awards for my decorating ability. Luckily, the placement of the grapefruit segments in a pretty pattern does not affect the taste of the dessert and the taste of this dessert was excellent. Was it worth the work or the calories? I'm not sure. I made this over a couple of days. Luckily, Paul had made and frozen extra tart dough, so for the crust all I had to do was defrost, roll, freeze in pan, and bake. On that same day I also made the almond-lemon cream and the grapefruit cremeux. On the second day I segmented the grapefruits, and baked and assembled the tart.
Let me just start by saying that Paul's tart crust (from the Tartine book) was amazing--it's like puff pastry it's so buttery--and I absolutely loved the grapefruit cremeux. Grapefruit is a favorite for me, and I thought Dorie balanced the sweet and tart flavors perfectly. The almond-lemon cream? I was unimpressed. It was fine, but I barely noticed it with all of the other flavors going on. It has done a nice job of protecting the shell--it's been in the fridge for a few days now and is still nice and crisp--so maybe that's reason enough for making it. I'm glad I made this once, but in the future I could see myself making the grapefruit cremeux to serve in bowls and skipping the rest of the steps.
I try to avoid gelatin, so I substituted agar agar in the cremeux. I totally guessed at the amount and the instructions, but it seemed to work perfectly. In case anyone's interested, I used two tablespoons of agar agar. I increased the amount of grapefruit juice by a few tablespoons (to account for the water used to soak the gelatin), and added the agar agar to the pan directly with the grapefruit juice. I know agar agar sets up pretty quickly when it cools, so I also skipped letting the cremeux sit for 5 minutes before adding the butter. I added the cremeux to the blender, and started adding butter and blending immediately. As soon as it was all incorporated, I pored the cremeux into a bowl. When it cooled, I covered it with plastic wrap and placed it in the fridge. By the next day it was VERY thick and creamy. It reached the perfect texture once whisked.
Your tart looks great! I'm glad that the agar agar worked out, too!
ReplyDeletethat's so nice that you had a great crust ready to go! and I'm very interested in your use of agar. I don't like gelatin either, and tried to use a plant-based kosher gelatin, but it didn't set right and I had to resort to using a bit of the regular stuff in the end.
ReplyDeleteI am not fond of gelatin because of the awful smell of it so I am very interested in trying the agar agar approach, thanks for sharing that tip, I noted it in my book for the next time. I am with you on the whole food photography thing, it all escapes my attentive detail and my photos are more or less just proof that I made the recipe that week. I will say, your tart looks absolutely perfect and stunning!
ReplyDeleteI must admit I don't know what agar agar is. I read it a few times while reading this week's blog, so I am definitely going to look it up. This is the fun of all this blogging, you learn many new things. Your tart looks great and I am glad you enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteI definitely want to try agar agar myself next time. Your tart looks great! And I completely agree re the lemon cream.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on the cremeux - I would make that on it's own.
ReplyDeleteI think your tart looks very pretty!
Good thing to have a prepated crust in the freezer.
ReplyDeleteI found it hard to get good segments of the grapefruits. The segments were small and would just go to pieces whe I tried to cut them out.
I think your tart looks lovely. I used agar agar also and it worked quite well.
ReplyDeleteI do think the almond cream made a great barrier for the crust. My tart is still fine a week later. It was an impressive dessert but it is hard to balance staying in the kitchen all day for one dessert.
ReplyDeleteIt looks very pretty to me, Jora! And now I'm going to hunt down the Tartine crust recipe :)
ReplyDeleteDear Jora - I think that your Grapefruit Trart looks wonderful and absolutely delicious - I should really get back into the swing of baking along with the TwD group...not that I want to be pushy or anything, since you commented on some ot the CCC posts, have I missed your link, so I can leave comments?
ReplyDeleteAll the very best,
Andrea
P.S.: I suppose your mailing address is still the same as it was for the FFwD Christmas card exchange - I am planning to send you all a little token of my appreciation for having reached the one hundred recipes in Hugh´s book.
Pre-made tart crust would definitely have lightened the load on this recipe. It's great to see an alternative to gelatin. I'm so tempted to try the agar agar as it seems that it was easier to work with.
ReplyDelete