This flan patissier is a simple dessert for the whole family. It is basically a cooked custard. You can make it plain, or add previously soaked raisins or dry plums or even chocolate chips.
Depending on the height of your tart pan you may have some left over (like for mine, 3/4 of the recipe below is sufficient).
Serves 8
Ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons of plain flour
- 1 L of milk
- 50 g butter (you can choose to do without, the butter add some richness and silkiness)
- 8 whole eggs
- 200 g white sugar
- Soaked raisins drained (prepare some tea, add some mirabelle liquor (plum brandy) or other liquor and let raisins soak for at least 3 hours)
- Seeds of 1 vanilla bean
Method:
- Preheat oven to 170°C. Butter and flour a tart pan.
- Place sugar, vanilla seeds, butter and milk in a large saucepan on the stove, heat up until close to boil.
- While the milk is warming up, in a large bowl, break the eggs, beat them and mix with the flour, use a ladle of the milk to help.
- When the milk is about to boil, pour half of the milk over the egg-flour mix while mixing (use a large whisk), transfer back to a slow heat and stir constantly. The mixture will thicken. Be careful not to boil it. When it is clearly coating the back of a spoon, remove from the heat, insert the soaked raisins and pour into the tart pan.
- Insert into the oven and bake until set (there will be a golden brown (it can be a bit darker than on the photo).
This peach crostata is a simple and delicious dessert. It can be done while you are preparing the rest of your dinner. You could change the fruits with what you have available. The difference with a more classic fruit tart is in the taste of the pastry and the presentation.
You have two choices when you make it: using the fresh fruits directly as such or cooking slighlty the fruits in butter and brown sugar until half done. Both are delicious!
Serves 4
Ingredients:
For the pastry
- 35 g of soft butter
- 40 g of thickened cream
- 80 g of plain flour
- 1 tablespoon of caster sugar
For the fruits filling
- 2 large peaches cut into thin slices
- 1 to 2 table spoon of brown sugar (depending on how sweet the fruits already are)
- if cooking the fruits : 2 tablespoon of almond meal, 15 g butter
Method
Mix all the pastry ingredients together, form a ball. if it is too sticky add a tiny bit flour. Rest on the bench for 10-15 minutes.
Preheat oven at 180°C.
Roll the dough out on a piece of baking paper (you will cook the crostata on it) in a roundish shape 25-30 cm diameter. Place the rolled pastry on a baking sheet and refrigerate for 5 minutes. This is necessary especially on hot days as the fat content of that dough is very high and you need to be able to handle the edges. In hot days, the pastry will be very quickly too sticky and teary.
If cooking the fruits , place them in a fry-pan with the butter on medium heat. When they start cooking, turn over once being careful not to break the fruits. Add the sugar, toss around, cook for another minute or two, then remove from the heat and add the almond meal, toss gently. This is now ready to be placed on the pastry.
Take your pastry out of the fridge, place the fresh fruits or fruit mix in the middle. If you are using fresh fruits, you can dispose the pieces on a round pattern. With the cooked fruits, pour them gently in the middle. In both cases, leave a 4 cm border.
Bring back the edges towards the middle.
Bake until golden brown. Cool down completely or partly before serving. Serve with thickened cream or whipped cream if desired.
This pear of chocolate flan is a crowd pleaser. I made it for morning teas at the office in the past and for desserts: children and adults love it.
In terms of difficulty level, it goes in the super easy basket. I get my children involved in the preparation. Today, I lost them when it came to put the pieces of pear in the mix, they were too busy leaking off the remaining chocolate from the wooden spoon and empty bowl.
Ingredients
- 150 g of dark cooking chocolate
- 90 g of white sugar
- 50 g of plain flour
- 4 eggs
- 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
- 1/4 L milk
- a nut of butter for the dish
- 2 pears
Method
- Pre-heat oven at 180°C
- Butter a roasting dish (capacity of about 1 litre)
- Melt the chocolate.
- Add in the sugar, then the egg one at the time.
- Add the flour then the cinnamon and milk.
- Place the mix in the roasting dish, peel and cut the pears. You can cut in thin slices or in cubes. Place over the chocolate (they will mostly sink in).
- Put in the oven and bake until all set.
Roasted strawberries are very simple to make, yet quite a success with the whole family. They can be served with a cake or with yogurt or “fromage blanc”. They are particularly good with chocolate cake.
In terms of difficulty level, it goes in the super easy basket!
Timing:
20 minutes
Ingredients:
- 2 punnets of strawberries (or as many as you need)
- 50 g caster sugar
- 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
Method
- Preheat Oven to 180°C
- Rinse the strawberries and hull them or simply cut the leaves off
- Place the strawberry in a single layer pointing up in a roasting pan (possibly the one you will serve in as after roasting they are quite fragile)
- Mix together in a bowl the vinegar and sugar and pour all over the strawberries, make sure all strawberries are coated. Another technique would be to toss them in the juice and them put them in place.
- Roast for 10-15 minutes or so until they are soft and tender. The timing will depend on the size of the strawberries and your oven.
Galette des rois – Kings’ Galette
Early January (the 6th to be exact) is the celebration of the Epiphany. In the Christian tradition, the epiphany represent the visit of the three kings to baby Jesus and the presentation of gifts. In France, this is a very social occasion and celebrated by all with a spacial cake called “la Galette des Rois”.
The galette contains a small piece of ceramics, if you end up with it in your piece, you become the king or queen and get to wear a crown! Then you may choose a queen or king and even a buffoon. To avoid cheating when distributing cake slices, the younger person (often a child) gets under the table and cites peoples at random as someone serves the cake.
The cake is made of puff pastry and fragipane custard cream. In France, you will find many at bakeries and in supermarkets that week, but in Australia, this is much harder to find. Below is the recipe.
Ingredients
The filling cream consist of a small custard mixed with a small frangipane cream.
- 2 sheets of puff pastries. Mine came as frozen squares, but the cake is more often of round shape
- 1 ceramic piece (they come in all shapes) or a small coin (washed) or small shell (washed), this piece is called the “fève” in French.
- frangipane cream: 125 g of almond meal, 100 g of softened butter, 80 g of caster sugar, 2 tablespoon of rum (optional)
- Creme patissiere: 1 egg yolk, 1 tablespoon of cornflour, 1 tablespoon of caster sugar, 10 cl of milk, a few drops of good quality vanilla essence
- 1 egg yolk dissolved with 2 tablespoons of water to seal the cake and glaze
Preparation – 20 min
Method
- Preheat oven at 180 ºC
- For the creme patissiere, mix the egg yolk, corn flour, vanilla, sugar and milk together in a small saucepan. Heat up while mixing (with a whisk), as soon as the mix is about to boil remove from the heat and mix until thick and glossy. Add rum is desired. Cool down in a different recipient.
- For the frangipane cream, work the butter until soft and smooth with a spatulla. If your butter is hard (was in the fridge), you may use the microwave on very low heat setting (max 30%) for 20 sec bursts until just soft. Add sugar and almond meal and mix well. Then mix with the creme patissiere and place in the fridge until needed for use.
- On a baking tray, place a sheet of baking paper, place the first sheet of puff pastry on it. Using a pointy knife, score all around the edge first centimetre and brush with the egg yolk- water mix.
- Add the frangipane custard that was in the fridge making sure not to cover the scored area. This is where you must put the ceramic piece. Now try not to put it where the knife will go through where cutting. For example, if cutting in triangular pieces, not in the middle; if cutting in squares (works only for the square shape cake and if you need to share it among quite a few people), try to place in a middle of a square.
- Cover with the second sheet of puff pastry and seal by pinching the edges together.
- Using your sharp knife, draw a floral pattern on top or even simpler geometric intersecting lines. Brush with the egg yolk and water mix. Put in the oven and bake until the top is well golden. Remove and transfer to a cooling rack, then on a serving dish.
