You can add a Recent Applications stack to the Dock. To do so, open Terminal and type this command:
defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }'
After that, type killall Dock to restart the Dock and see your new folder. The only thing is that I haven't found a way to have it show as a fan, it only shows in tile view. But it is already a nice trick.
