Directions
Creme Patissiere:
Infuse milk: Place milk, vanilla seeds, used beans and 50g (1/4 cup) sugar in a large saucepan over medium high heat. Bring to just before boiling, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Remove from heat, place lid on and leave to steep for 10 minutes.
Yolk mixture: Meanwhile, place egg yolks, egg and remaining sugar in a large bowl and whisk to combine. Add cornflour and whisk until smooth.
Temper eggs: While whisking the eggs, slowly pour in about half the milk in a thin stream. Whisk until combined.
Thicken custard: Pour the egg-milk mixture back into the saucepan then whisk to combine. Place over medium low heat, stirring constantly so the base doesn’t catch, until it starts to thicken (you will feel it). It should happen within 3 to 5 minutes. If it gets lumpy, remove off heat, whisk vigorously – will become smooth.
Stir 20 seconds after bubbles appear: When the custard is thickened and hot and you see the first big lazy bubbles appear on the base, whisk constantly on the stove for a further 20 seconds then remove from stove. (To check for bubbles, pause stirring for a few seconds)
Butter: Whisk butter in until fully incorporated.
Strain & cool: Immediately strain into a bowl through a fine mesh strainer. Discard vanilla bean. Cover with cling wrap touching the surface. Cool on counter (3 hrs+) then refrigerate 12 – 24 hours. (Note 5)
Crust:
Work with pastry as frozen as possible – it’s easier. (Note 4)
Cut base and sides: Cut base out using the inside of the pan as a guide on one sheet of puff pastry. Cut three 25 x 5.5cm (2.15 x 10″) wide strips on the other sheet of puff pastry. Place base and sides back in freezer. RESERVE offcuts (for emergency patching).
Line pan: Butter and line the sides of a 20cm/8″ springform pan with a 5.5cm / 2.2″ strip of baking paper. We are not using the pan base. (Note 6)
Line sides: Place cake pan on a square sheet of baking paper on a plate. (Note 6) Remove cut puff pastry from freezer. Working quickly, when sides have JUST thawed enough to bend, line sides of cake pan with puff pastry, overlapping by 1cm / 0.4″, using water to seal – just press down for now (will seal properly later).
Base: Brush base of sides with water. Fit base into cake pan (see video at 2 min 50 sec for technique).
Seal pastry: Use the back of a teaspoon to press base into the corner. Then smear the now-thawing puff pastry to full seal.
Prick base: Prick base 30 times with fork. (I always forget!!)
Freeze: Cover with cling wrap, freeze 4 – 24 hours. (Note 4)
Bake:
Preheat oven to 220°C/430°F (200°C fan) for 30 minutes.
Line & fill with beads: Pick up crust using paper and place on tray (on the paper). Crumple 2 x 60cm / 2 feet long sheets of baking paper (Note 7) then fit into crust arranged in X. Fill with baking beads 1cm / 0.4″ below rim (Note 8). Press to push paper into corners.
Blind bake 25 min + 5 min: Bake 25 minutes, then use overhang paper to remove beads carefully (if sides look like they will cave in, return to oven with beads for 5 min). Bake 5 minutes then cool 10 minutes. (Seal any visible cracks with puff pastry scraps)
Assemble Flan Pâtissier:
Turn oven down to 200°C/390°F (180°C fan).
Fill with custard: Remove Creme Patissiere from fridge. Whisk to loosen, scrape into crust – fill to 1cm/0.4″ below rim. (Leftover custard Note 7) Smooth surface, brush custard surface with egg yolk (use it all).
Bake 65 minutes, rotating tray 180° at 45 minutes. It will puff up in the last 15 ninutes like a souffle. Remove from oven – it will still be very wobbly, have faith! It will set when cool!
Golden surface – If the top is not golden like pictured, switch on broiler to caramelise surface. Watch carefully – takes minutes!
Cool on counter for 4 hours (in pan). Transfer to plate (still in pan), cover loosely with cling wrap, then refrigerate 12+ hours.
Serve: Remove from fridge 1 hour prior to serving to bring to room temperature. Cut into slices like cake! The pastry is crispy & flaky. The custard will cut neatly (it will not ooze) but when you bite into it, the custard is beautifully soft and creamy. Traditionally eaten as a hand held bakery treat in France but you can use a plate if you’re feeling civilised!
Shelf life: Flan Pâtissier is at its best in the first 24 hours after it is put in the fridge after baking as this is when the pastry is still beautifully crisp. Beyond this the pastry starts to soften which no one has pointed out yet because everyone is besotted by the custard! But I notice. 🙂
Recipe Notes:
KEY TIPS FOR SUCCESS:
Risk of taller-than-usual puff pastry sides caving in before they are set – Take care when removing baking beads to ensure it is set. If sides look like they are flopping, put baking beads back in at bake 5 minutes longer until sides stop flopping in.
Custard doesn’t set – Make sure you measure the cornflour properly, and cook for 20 seconds after big lazy bubbles appear.
Custard leaking – Use puff pastry scraps to seal any visible cracks.
Crispy base – Bake directly on tray without using base of springform pan.
Your pastry isn’t as neat as mine – So what? It’s still gonna be delicious. Besides, this tart is SUPPOSED to look rustic rather than elegant like, say, Lemon Tart.
1. Vanilla beans – Split the beans in half (or cut a slit down the middle) then use a butter knife or teaspoon to scrape the seeds out.
Substitute: 2 tsp vanilla bean paste (ie with little vanilla specks in it), this is what I used in early days of testing for economical reasons. Vanilla extract will work (ie liquid, no specks) but vanilla flavour not as pure. As for imitation vanilla, I don’t think it has a place in this recipe I’m afraid!
2. Egg yolks – 120g / 4.2 oz yolks is usually 6 large eggs weighing 55 – 60g / 2 oz each (600g / 1.2lb for a dozen eggs, usually labelled “large eggs” because it’s an industry standard).
The fairly long bake time for this recipe guarantees the custard will set (assuming you measure cornflour properly!) so don’t get too hung about about 100% accuracy of yolks by weight.
Leftover egg whites – Here’s my list of what I do with them and all my egg white recipes can be found in this recipe collection.
3. Cornflour/cornstarch – You do NOT want to be short on the cornflour as the setting of the custard relies on it! Easiest to weigh for accuracy. Make sure the tablespoon is properly filled, packed in and levelled off with the back of a knife.
READERS IN FRANCE – Do not use what you call “cornflour” (ie the yellow powder), use cornstarch (white powder).
4. Puff pastry handling – For this recipe, it is easiest to handle the puff pastry while as stiff as possible (ie frozen), JUST pliable enough to work with. Else it flops/slides/gets sticky. At any point if it thaws too much, just slide it back into the freezer.
CUTTING side strips – Use a long knife, cut straight down and up. Don’t drag knife along pastry as this smears the pastry so you won’t see the lovely layers when baked.
Freezing lined cake pan overnight – This helps ensure sides don’t collapse during blind baking and helps prevent pastry shrinkage. An excellent tip for any tart / quiche pastry blind baking, per advice from a professional Pastry Chef in France.
5. Fridge custard overnight – This improves the flavour of the custard. But if in a hurry, you can continue on once the custard is completely cool.
6. Not using base – Baking the tart directly on a tray without the cake pan base ensures the puff pastry base is beautifully crisp and golden, not soggy at all. Essentially, we’re using the no-base tart ring baking method that professionals use!
Plate – This is just for handling purposes until lined pastry is frozen again, bearing in mind we are not using the cake pan base. Use anything flat.
7. Crumpling the baking paper makes it easier to fit into the taller crust. Also a handy tip for small tart shells!
8. Baking beads – Need to fill quite deep to ensure it holds up the sides as it bakes, else you run the risk of the sides flopping in as it bakes. But not right to top of rim as we want the top of the pastry to bake up with beautiful flaky layers – so pretty!
No baking beads? Use large dried beans instead. Super cheap baking beads!
Dried lentils/rice etc will also work but add 5 minutes to the baking time. Smaller grains = less heat gets through them = longer bake time required to set the base.
9. Leftover Custard (keeps 3 days in fridge) – Volume of custard is such that expert level bakers will virtually use it all because there will be no pastry shrinkage / sides sliding down which leads to smaller pie crust volume to fill.
If you do not use it all, you can either use it as a dolloping custard on anything, eat it with a spoon, fill small ramekins and bake for 20 minutes, or use leftover puff pastry to make mini custard tarts (line muffin in, prick base, bake 18 min at 180C/350F lined with paper and filled with beads, bake 5 min uncovered, cool, fill, brush stop with egg, bake 20 min.
10. Recipe credits – A recipe developed by yours truly over quite a few months with the assistance of:
Jennifer Pogmore, French Pastry Chef extraordinaire based in France who has found herself in the unexpected position as my teacher of all things French pastry.
Chef Jean-Baptiste, RecipeTin Eats culinary collaborator and my “this is the faster, better way to do it” mentor, and his father, for going out and buying Flan Patissier samples to send us photos for inspection!
My wonderful, surprisingly large French Instagram community, for participating in Q&A as I set about determining exactly they thought entailed the “perfect” Flan Patissier!
