Flan Pâtissier...

Every time we’ve been to France recently there’s been some irrational obsession and anticipation about having a slice of ‘flan’. This is usually followed by the inevitable, equally irrational over-eating of said ‘flan’. In an attempt to meet this need the rest of the year, I have done some searching for the ‘flan’ recipe online, but with only that one word to go on, the results were variable. Then I spotted this box of flan mix in a French supermarket, which surely was going to be the answer to our need for flan the year round. It was worth a gamble for €1.15.

As it happens, when we got it home I realised that the box simply contains cornflour, vanilla flavouring and colouring. You have to add milk, sugar and, if you want to improve the flavour, an egg (On that note, make sure you add the sugar – long story); so really we already had everything we needed in the cupboard.

It was obvious really, but now I know it’s called Flan Pâtissier as I’ve seen it on the box, and a quick google reveals loads of authentic, egg-based recipes I can try, so look out for flan version 2 in the future.

• Line a fairly deep tart tin or cake tin with a rich shortcrust pastry, and bake blind so the pastry is cooked before adding the filling
• Beat the egg, sugar, 250ml of milk and the packet mix together in a bowl/jug
• Meanwhile bring the rest of the milk to the boil slowly, stirring all the time so it doesnt catch.
• When it has boiled, por it over the egg mixture and stir together thoroughly
• Return to the pan and simmer for 1-2 minutes until the custard begins to thicken up
• Pour into the crust and bake for around 40 minutes at 180°C until the crust is well browned.
• Cool for at least 2 hours in the fridge before slicing and serving.

Notes:
• A rich pastry can be made quickly by combining 8oz of plain flour, with 3oz of butter to resemble breadcrumbs. Then bind the mixture with an egg and a little milk. It can be sweetened with 2 or 3 spoons of icing sugar.
• Curiously the box recipe does not call for pastry, but says you can butter the dish and dust with flour. This does work, and it holds together fine, but really you want pastry!

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Viennese Whirls...

I recently decided to 'resurrect' these biscuits. They follow a family recipe of my aunt's and I'd not had them for years.

Forget Mr. Kipling's, and make your own very quickly and very easily. These are seriously simple, but so tasty.

• Preheat oven to 150°C
• In a food processor (or by hand) mix 6 oz butter and 2 oz icing sugar until creamy.
• Blend in 6 oz self raising flour and 2 oz custard powder.
• Spoon into small teaspoon-sized blobs onto a baking sheet and press down with a fork to flatten/pattern (or use a piping bag for a swirl if you'd prefer a true 'whirl').
• Bake for 10-15 minutes until slightly golden.
• Leave to cool for around half an hour.

Filling:
• Beat together butter and icing sugar (about a 1:4 ratio) until creamy.
• Spread generous blob of icing on a biscuit.
• Spoon a little jam onto the centre of that and sandwich another biscuit on top.
• To finish dust with a little icing sugar.

Notes:
• If you dont have custard powder you can also use a mixture of cornflour, vanilla essence and yellow colouring as this what custard powder is made from anyway.
• If the jam is quite sticky, blast it in the microwave for 10 seconds or so to loosen up.

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Hazelnut Cake...

This cake is divine. I saw it and wanted it immediately. But... we didn't have enought hazelnuts so had to wait. It's taken directly from Rachel Allen's Bake, with no modification besides the decorating (although i found it more practical to do things in a different order). There's no flour, just ground hazelnuts so the end result is moist, whilst the whipped egg whites keep it light. Sorry this photo is so boring, it doesn't to the cake justice really (see it in a different guise) but believe me* it tastes good.

Ingredients:
• 200g Hazelnuts
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Cinnamon
• 100g Butter
• 5 Eggs, separated
• 175g Caster Sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla Essence

Method:
• Preheat oven to 170°C and line a tin with baking paper.
• Grind the hazelnuts on the food processor until finely ground; blend in the baking powder, cinnamon and butter to a coarse paste.
• In a bowl, whisk the egg whites thoroughly until you have stiff peaks.
• In another bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together until moussey, then add the hazelnut mixture.
• Fold the whites into the hazelnut mix in 3 stages.
• Pour into the tin and bake for 55-60 minutes until the edges are coming away from the pan.
• It is suggested you don't open the oven during cooking until close to the end of the time.
• Cool for approximately 10 minutes in the tin before turning out to cool fully.
• Decorate with a little buttercream icing and chopped hazelnuts.

Notes:
* Don't take my word for it. I made this for a cake competition and came away with 'Best Tasting'.

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Peaches & Cream Cupcakes...

These are taken from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. They're quite a moist cake, with sweet mouthfulls of peach.

Ingredients:
120g Plain Flour
140g Caster Sugar
1 tsp Baking Powder
40g Butter
120ml Milk
1 Egg
Vanilla Extract
400g Peach slices

• Beat the flour, sugar, baking powder and butter together in a mixer until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
• Beat the egg and milk together with a little vanilla essence, then pour in gradually, mixing until smooth.
• Fill paper cases two-thirds full and top with a couple of peach slices in each.
• Bake in a preheated oven (170°C) for 20 minutes.
• Cool and decorate with buttercream icing, sprinkled with a little brown sugar.

Notes:
• Icing: 250g Icing Sugar, 80g Butter, 25ml Milk, vanilla essence
• Makes 12

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Lemon Sponge Fingers...

I've been featuring a lot of cakes recently, so hopefully you have a sweet tooth. These don't need a lot saying about them, it's just a simple lemon cake cut into small pieces.

• Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Beat in the eggs, gradually with a little flour if necessary
• Fold in the flour and 1 lemon's juice.
• Pour into a 20 x 20cm tin and bake at 170°C for 25 minutes.
• Turn out and cool on a rack.
• Meanwhile, mix your icing with the other lemon's juice and the icing sugar to a consistency that will spread easily, but not run off the cake.
• Ice the cooled cake and sprinkle the top with zest from your lemons.
• Cut into 'finger' slices.

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Bakewell Slices...

A classic cake slice, so much nicer when you make it yourself with the hint of real almonds, rather than the fake strong almond essence flavouring.


Pastry base:
(Requires 150g flour and 75g butter)
• Blend the butter and flour to the breadcrumb stage, then bind with a little cold water, milk or beaten egg, whichever you prefer. You can sweeten the pastry a little with some icing sugar if you like but it's not necessary.
• To keep things simple I pressed this dough mixture into 2 greased 20cm sandwich tins to approx 3mm thickness. You can of course roll it out and line the tin that way for slightly better results!
• Spread jam over the pastry and bake at 170°C for 5-10 minutes until it is beginning to harden slightly.
• Remove from the oven and cool in the tins.

Cake:
• Beat butter and sugar until creamed and fluffy.
• Beat in the eggs and fold in the flour and ground almonds.
• Pour/spread over the jam tarts to no more than 1cm deep.
• Sprinkle flaked almonds over the top then bake at 170°C for 20-30 minutes until golden on top.
• Cool in the tins slightly then remove and place on a wire rack to cool completely.
• Mix the icing sugar with a little water until the consistency is just runny enough to drizzle over the tarts.

Notes:
• Makes 2 x 20cm tarts, 8-10 slices per tart. Could use a 22cm square tin or individual tarts.
• Raspberry or blackcurrant jam is best

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Black Bottom Cupcakes...

We received the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook for Christmas, and so with a friend's birthday on 1st January it seemed the ideal occasion to try something out. I chose these Black Bottom Cupcakes. The idea is simple, chocolate cake topped with a blob of cheesecake. They look tasty and are tasty... although I think I will make some modifications next time to make them even tastier!

Cake:
190g Plain Flour
120g Caster Sugar
2 tbsp Cocoa
½ tsp Bicarbonate of soda
40ml Sunflower Oil
125ml Water
½ tsp Vanilla Extract
(the recipe also lists 1½ tsp White vinegar, but I can't remember using that so am guessing I didn't!)

Cheesecake:
250g Cream cheese
60g Caster Sugar
1 Egg
½tsp Vanilla Extract
100g Milk Chocolate Chips

Icing:
250g Icing Sugar
80g Butter
25ml Milk
Drop of Vanilla Extract

• Mix the flour, sugar, cocoa and bicarb together, then add the oil, vinegar, vanilla and water.
• Spoon the mixture into muffin cases to about 2/3 full.
• To make the cheesecake bit, beat all the ingredients except the chocolate in a bowl with an electric whisk on a medium speed until light and fluffy (roughly the consistency of loose whipped cream). Stir in the chocolate chips gently.
• Spoon on top of the cake mixture and bake in a preheated oven (170°C) for about 20 minutes (until the cheesecake topping is slightly golden at the edges.
• Whilst the cakes cool, beat the icing ingredients together until pale and fluffy.
• Decorate the cakes and dust with cocoa or chocolate shavings.

•Notes:
• Officially this mixture makes 12. For me the cake mix made 9 and the cheescake about 18, so next time I shoudl probably have a bit less cake and a bit more cheesecake per muffin and it'll be about 12!
• Also, the recipe calls for 140g cream cheese, I couldn't get this to thicken up without the extra 100g.

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Mince Pies (from scratch)...

Mince Pies are Christmas essentials. There's loads of choice out there in the shops; deep fill, luxury, shortcrust, puff, lattice, big, small... However, they just aren't ever quite the same as ones you make yourself. This year I felt inspired to give homemade mincemeat a go, and turned to Delia for a recipe.

I was pleasanty surprised how simple it is, and so tasty too! Everyone should give it a go, you'll never look back.

Mincemeat: I followed Delia's recipe, except using pre-ground nutmeg as I couldn't get hold of fresh. Can't see this being a problem.
I've got some thoughts for variation below though.
This recipe makes LOADS of mince pies, so you'll have them coming out of your ears.

Pastry:
200g Plain Flour
100g Butter
1 Egg
2tbsp Icing Sugar

• Blend (by hand or mixer) the flour, icing sugar and butter to the breadcrumb stage.
• Add the egg to bind it together.
• Chill for an hour or so then roll out, cut into rounds and line a tart tin.
• Fill with a small teaspoon of mincemeat and top with smaller circles or christmassy shapes.
• Bake in a preheated oven (180°C) for 15-20 mins until golden brown.
• Cool on a rack and dust with icing sugar.
(makes at least 20)

Notes:
Potential variation ideas for the mincemeat...
• Add cranberries, should sharpen it up a bit.
• Add chopped dried apricot and use Amaretto liquer instead of brandy.

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White Chocolate Cheesecake with Berry Sauce...

I first had this cheesecake at some friends' house, and couldn't believe how good it was. So, inevitably I looked up the recipe and have actually changed very little. As it's gluten free in the original I've substituted for normal digestives which I prefer to the chocolatey base. There are loads of potential vaiations to this once you have the basic cheesecake mixture you can just go with whatever you can lay your hands on. This time round I made a simple berry sauce for a topping.

• Melt the butter and crush the biscuits then combine and press into the base of a 20cm tin (ideally with removable base or spring-form). Chill for 2 hours.
• Melt the chocolate and cool slightly.
• Meanwhile beat the cheese, cream and icing sugar in a bowl until well combined.
• Fold in the cooled chocolate thoroughly, then pour over the biscuit base.
• Chill for 2-3 hours to set.

Notes:
• For the berry topping I heated up 200g mixed berries with about the same amount of sugar until it began to thicken. Cooled and then poured over the set cheesecake.

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