Flan Patissier

Flan patissier is a French classic. A baked custard, encased in sweet shortcrust pastry. The baked custard is creamy and silky soft which works so well with the buttery and crisp pastry. This isn’t a dessert that packs a punch with flavour, but it really is a lovely custard tart that is extremely easy to make and definitely a crowd pleaser!

I use the recipe for my Flan Patissier from one of my favourite cookbooks – ‘Patisserie’ by Melanine Dupuis & Anne Cazor. If you’re not confident about pastry then feel free to use pre-made pastry, however this sweet shortcrust pastry is AMAZING, and will definitely be a new go-to recipe of mine!

I topped my flan with strawberries straight from the garden, because what could be better! Happy Baking!

Ingredients:

Pastry:

200g plain flour
100g butter
50g water
1g salt
25g caster sugar
15g egg yolk

Flan Mixture:

200g egg, roughly 4 eggs
200g caster sugar
60g potato starch – I didn’t have any in the house so instead I used cornflour which worked well for me 🙂
800g milk
1 vanilla bean or 1+1/2 tsp. vanilla bean paste or extract

Method:

Start by making your shortcrust pastry – in a large mixing bowl, rub the butter into the flour using your fingertips until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.
Add the water, salt, sugar and egg yolk and mix with your hands until a mooth dough is formed.
Flatten and knead the dough with the heel of your hand twice, to make sure your dough is uniform and smooth.
Flatten into a disc and cover in clingfilm. Place into the fridge and leave to rest for at least 2 hours or over night.
Grease a 24cm tart ring with butter.
Roll out your pastry to a 2mm thickness. Line your greased ring with the rolled pastry – I used a rolling pin to help transport the pastry.
Place the lined tin in the fridge for another hour to rest.
Pre heat your oven to 180C.
In a bowl, whisk together your eggs and sugar until it doubles in size and is light and airy. Add the potato starch or cornflour and whisk again.
Place your milk and vanilla in a saucepan on a high heat. When it starts to boil and rises up the pan, remove from the heat and pour half of the milk on top of your egg yolk mixture. Whisk well and return the mixture to the pan with the remaining milk.
Place the pan back onto high heat and continue to whisk vigorously until it starts to boil and thickens.
Once the mixture boils, remove from the heat and pour into your chilled pastry base.
Trim the edges of the pastry and place the tart into the oven for 45mins – 1 hour until it is well-coloured on top.
Leave to cool and then refrigerate for 3 hours until set.
Enjoy!