Lovin' from the Oven with Fruit Flan

Good day to you all! It's a beautiful sunny day in Auckland and all that is on my mind is food. Which is not very different from any other day, but considering that my future profession is in the food industry I can get away with it. Lately I've been thinking about all the different ways I can keep myself fit after making so many pastry items. Perhaps Zumba? Running? or maybe power walking? But the only fitness I can motivate myself to do is walking downstairs to the fridge and back, I know it sounds like way too much effort is needed but if you saw the size of our fridge you would understand how worth it it is.

Anyway enough with the lame jokes, this week has been fairly stress free and easy as we are preparing to sit our first written test and have our first practical assessment next week. So in the kitchen we have been making an assortment of basic pastry items, which is why I have decided to give you the recipe for the fruit flan we made a couple of weeks back. This was by far my favourite lesson because we were able to be a bit more creative and actually decorate something that looks vibrant and not bland. There are many variations to this recipe so feel free to be a bit creative and make something up!

Tips:
1. The pastry is very temperamental so be careful when rolling it out. The sweet pastry recipe makes two portions of pastry as a 'back up' just in case the first lot is too hard to handle.

2. If your a pro and roll out the pastry perfectly first go then either save the rest of the pastry, wrapped up in the fridge, to use another day, make something else with it or double the pastry cream recipe and make two flan's.

Ingredients

Sweet Pastry

120g sugar

120g butter

1 egg

280g standard flour

½ tsp vanilla essence

½ lemon zest

pinch salt

Pastry Cream

300g milk

50g sugar

1 egg yolk

25g custard powder

100g cream (whipped)

Method

Sweet Pastry

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees

2. Cream the softened butter and sugar lightly

3. Dissolve salt in the egg and mix in vanilla essence and zest

4. Gradually add the egg mixture to the creamed mixture

5. Fold in sifted flour and gently mix into a smooth paste

6. Cut into two separate pieces, wrap up and put in the fridge

7. Rest in the fridge for at least ½ an hour before use

8. While in the fridge make the pastry cream

Pastry Cream

1. Place half the sugar and most of the milk (retain 2 tablespoons for later use) into a saucepan and bring to the boil

2. Mix custard powder and sugar together, add the left over milk (two tablespoons) to the mixture.

3. Stir in the yolk

4. Pour the boiled milk over the prepared mixture of milk, custard powder, sugar and yolks while stirring

5. Pour back into the saucepan and cook thoroughly, constantly whisking

6. Pour into a clean bowl

7. Cover the pastry cream (not the bowl) with glad wrap

8. Put in the fridge to cool down

Rolling out of the pastry

1. Roll out the pastry to just larger than a 20cm fluted flan/tart tin, or if you would rather make 10 tartlets, roll out to just larger than the size of the tartlet tin

2. Place the pastry in the tins and press so all the air bubbles are removed

3. With a fork create holes in the bottom of the pastry

4. Roll a rolling pin over the top of the tin to cut off the extra trimmings

5. Cut a 20cm circle of baking paper and place this on top of the pastry

6. Put an even layer of either beans or rice on top of the baking paper

7. Bake blind for 12-20 minutes

8. It’s cooked when the pastry is slightly brown and is no longer shiny but dull

9. Remove from the oven once cooked and put onto a cooling rack

Assembly

1. Remove the pastry cream from the fridge and whisk until smooth/lump free

2. Add 1/3 of the whipped cream and mix until combined

3. Fold the rest of the whipped cream into the mixture until combined

4. Put into the cooled pastry case and level it to the top

5. Decorate with any fruit, I used sliced peaches and formed a pattern as shown in the photo, but you could use apples, berries or pour on chocolate ganache.

6. Enjoy!

Well that's all from me this week, I hope you enjoy this tasty treat and if you do decide to make it let me know how you got on...

Happy Baking,

B.