Catherynne M. Valente
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ALLCAPS COOKBOOK PRESENTS: Shockingly Dairy-Free Orange Cream Tart Studded with Pecans and Pistachio Dust
🕑 Added 2025-08-30 18:18:24 +0000 UTCJust want to say up top: do not go near this thing if you have a nut allergy. You WILL die.
(You could make a regular short crust pastry shell and top it with fruit or granola or a glaze or a brulee-style sugar crust and not die, though.)
So I got a massive bag of oranges I didn’t order in my grocery delivery, and two people can only eat so many, so I started Making Stuff with the rest of them.
This one is really just a lovely light French cream tart that somehow, through what is clearly the work of the devil, has no actual cream in it. I don't really get it either, it tastes like creamy dairy goodness. And yet.
Now, there IS butter. My personal issues with dairy never ran afoul of butter, but if yours do, please use the substitute of your choice. Coconut oil is AMAZING in the crust, but too much coconut flavor for the filling--use a plant butter or 4.5 tablespoons of plain mayo instead. You could also easily leave the butter step out of the final cream entirely as long as you increased the proportions of the rest of the ingredients by 20% to account for the lost volume. The texture will be very similar. If you aren't using butter, DEFINITELY include the gelatin step to make sure it sets up correctly.
You could pretty easily make this gluten-free as well by doing the crust entirely with almond meal instead of only partially (simple recipe for that right ovah heah) and the only non-vegan thing in it is eggs which...look, I'm not going to pretend to know the ins and outs of egg substitutes and what they can and can't do, but I bet you could do something similar with aquafaba (my brain refuses to not call that stuff bean juice) and increasing the extract/sugar a bit.
Any way you SLICE IT HA HA HA, it's a perfectly lovely little summer tart that won't sit too heavy and tastes like pure sunshine. (The orange extract is to punch up the orange flavor a little. Without it, the taste is almost unbelievably delicate, really TRES ADULT SOPHISTICATE, but if you're making it for kids, they'd definitely prefer more ORNG.)
Would it also work with blood oranges? I bet it'd be even better. If I make it again, will I be adding passionfruit? Boy howdy.
And kids aside? This GOOD BOI is perfectly lovely on its own, but where it shines is with a sip of espresso after each bite. I've done it every morning since I made it and it's SPECTACULAR.
OKAY ARE YOU READY TO FROOT?
Ingredients
Pastry shell:
7 tbs salted butter, super soft but not liquid
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup + 1 tsp almond meal/flour
1 1/3 cup flour
Zest of one lime (orange or lemon is fine too, lime gives is a little something special)
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Filling:
3 oranges, the bigger the better, juiced and zested
4 eggs
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp fine white sugar
3 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 cup butter, super soft, but not liquid
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp orange extract (or other fruit that melds well with orange. Passionfruit or peach would be wonderful)
Optional Thing 1: 1 teaspoon Gelatin powder dissolved in cold water (this one is super optional. This thing REALLY wants to set up firmly*, so you don't really need it. But the consistency will come out very like the inside of a creme brulee. If you want something a little less wobbly and a little more structured/toothsome, do the gelatin.)
Optional Thing 2: If you make this closer to spring/the beginning of summer, this is the move: incredibly finely dice up maybe 1/8 cup of rhubarb into the crust. Roughly chop up a full stalk of Rhubarb, dust with sugar, then bake on parchment paper at 400 for about 10 minutes or until softened (add a bit of water to the hot pan or fill a tray with water and put it on the rack underneath at the same time as the rhubarb toward the end to speed this up). Pulverize the SHIT out of it so there will be no change in the smooth, creamy consistency, and add to the filling when cooled. The bright but earthy flavor of the rhubarb will take this way over the top. It's just August and the rhubarb is long dead.
Up Top:
1/4 cup pistachios, annihilated in a food processor until little more than dust
10-14 large pecan halves, or more if you like
1-2 tablespoons orange zest
Final Note: You WILL want a stand mixer/electric mixer and an immersion blender for this. I was feeling my earth mother fairy tale peasant oats and decided to do it all by hand, and THAT WAS DUMB WHEN MARIE ANTOINETTE DID IT AND ALSO WHEN I DID. Ow.
LET'S HAVE A TART ATTACK
This is one of those recipes where there's a LOT of wait time while various things sit in the fridge and think about what they've done. Manage thy time accordingly.
Make the crust about three hours before you want to eat the tart. You can easily make it the night before or freeze it until whenever.
Blend the butter and powdered sugar on low, with the PADDLE attachment, in your mixer until smoove. Add the egg, almond meal, and zest and keep the speed on the low side while it combines. Stop the mixer, sift in the flour, salt, and nutmeg, and, still keeping the speed low, mix until a dough ball sort of half-sloppily forms.
Lay out a pice of parchment paper, dump the dough onto the middle, lay another piece of parchment on top, and roll out (it'll take a little oomph) to an inch or so wider than the circumference of whatever pan you mean to use. If you have a tart pan, great. If not, a pie pan will work fine, even a springform pan will work, you just won't get the pretty side crenellations. Oh well, who cares.
Put shell, still sandwiched between parchment pages, in the refrigerator for at least one hour.
(This is not the time to make the filling, I'll tell you when!)
Remove shell from fridge and gently lay into your pan. Press the edges into the sides and trim off the excess. Use the excess like play-doh to reinforce any uneven or thinner portions of the shell. If you're better than everyone else and made it perfectly uniform, FINE, either use it to thicken the sides or roll out the scraps, throw some jam in there, fold it over like mini-calzones, and bake at 350 until golden brown.
FOR THE REST OF US, pierce the bottom of the pastry several times with a fork and put in the freezer for 30 minutes if you want to bake it now, or until Tart Day Cometh.
Bake shell at 350 for 25-30 minutes, remove, and let cool completely before you put anything else in there.
NOW is the time to make the filling, while the shell is cooling.
Juice and zest all your oranges. Simmer the orange juice in a small pot but don't let it come to a boil. While it's heating up, whisk sugar, eggs, cornstarch, nutmeg, and extract in another, larger pot. Have a large, clean, dry heat-safe bowl ready to go.
Once the juice is simmering, trickle it into the larger goo-pot while whisking the whole time. If you're using gelatin, add it now.
Put the whole business on LOW heat.
*This is the only tricky step, because this little punk wants to fry itself to death on the sides and bottom of your pan SO BAD. I'm serious, it's going to go from vaguely foamy liquid to burning in a SECOND, so be very careful, DO NOT STOP WHISKING, and turn the heat off the SECOND it starts to thicken up and pour it into your ready bowl, somewhere around 4-5 minutes. If you're using gelatin, it will go faster.
Let the cream cool in the bowl for a few minutes, then add in the soft butter and orange zest. Whisk, or, much more highly recommended so as to get a completely smooth consistency if you, I don't know, maybe misjudged how fast that shit was going to turn into glue and got some lumps, an immersion blender. Whisk or blend it all together and turn out into the cold pie shell. Smooth out the top with a rubber spatula and chill in the fridge for 1 hour or long enough that it can bear a little weight without pecans plooping through.
After an hour, remove tart from the fridge, arrange the pecans carefully on top in whatever pattern pleases, then dust with pistachios and zest. Put back in the fridge for another 1.5-2 hours or until completely cold and set.
Serve with espresso, or if you made it for kids and you don't need them to achieve full demonic caffeine possession, whipped cream. Don't use ice cream--this structure of this is delicate and light, it won't take the weight of ice cream unless--MAYBE--you used gelatin.
Happy summer!
Comments
Molly McEnerney
Your recipes are more of an exciting, engaging, emotional journey than most writers' actual novels.
KJ Hawkwood
Mostly here to say that reading you writing about baking is more enjoyable than most people writing about *anything*. Not quite sure how you do it but it's delightful!
