There's a lot of blood orange recipes going around right now, and no wonder. This fruit not only looks amazing but tastes so unique compared to any other orange.
It's not really too tart but not too sweet either and the color of the juice is intense. I was inspired to make this orange curd tart after seeingblood orange bars, so I figured with it being a citrus I could just follow the recipe for a regular citrus tart, switching the lemon or lime juice for the blood orange juice plus a couple other changes.
I used lime tart recipe as a starting point. I was hoping to get a deeper red hue to the curd, but looking around at other blood orange tart recipes, this paler color seems to be normal.
It reminds me of how traditional key lime pie is - super pale, almost yellow but sometimes you'll see one that's green....weird and fake.
I had been searching for blood oranges for a while but had the hardest time finding any, even though they should be in season from December through March. I'm definitely going to try and grow my own tree for the future though.
Making the filling is pretty easy, just keep stirring the curd or you might end up with scrambled eggs.
It will thicken even though it seems like it won't - just have patience (and a strong-ass arm). It should take about 10 minutes of constant stirring. I added fresh rosemary to the crust.
Using rosemary in desserts is always on my mind - it's flowery, mellow flavor always creates a surprise for whoever's tasting the dish. If you need a simple crust with the best buttery shortbread flavor, then this should be it!
Another great thing was, when my kids saw me cut the oranges open to juice, they went crazy! They like fruit especially berries but they were all over the leftover oranges and then had me cutting up even more.
I think it was the color because whenever they see me slice up regular old oranges, I never hear a peep from them. Minutes later they were both laughing at each others red juice faces and trying to figure out who could eat an orange wedge the fastest!
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