Master Pastry Chef's Perfect Parisian Flan | Bake Along w/ Anna Olson

Well hello everyone and welcome to my Bake Along series. Oh today's recipe is a real gem. It's a personal favorite, flan parisien. Now this is, it sounds simple, a pastry crust with a pastry cream filling. Oh but no, it is so glamorous and stunning. I'll go through the steps of how to line your springform pan with butter pastry and then make this thick rich yet silky vanilla custard and the trick for that beautiful caramelized top, it's all the oven's work. So stay with me for this spectacular flan parisien. This is one of those recipes that is complex without being complicated. It only has two elements, the pie pastry and the custard filling. I've already made my pie dough. This is my signature pie dough recipe and you can get the full link and recipe below. It's been chilled and is ready to roll. What counts is the pan we're putting it in. This is a springform pan typically used for cheesecakes but it is used for this custard tart to get the height and drama from it. So I'll start rolling my pie dough here. Flour your work surface and the pastry and I'm using a french tapered rolling pin and I start first with slow gentle motions from the center of the dough when I'm rolling. You can pull it out a couple minutes before you plan on rolling your pie dough just to let it soften a little. It does not compromise the flakiness or the tenderness of the dough at all and once I get it starting to flatten out a little bit I like to check the other side because look at that. That's where the cracks develop. You can't even see until they've broken through. Early in the rolling process I flip my dough over and then continue to roll and you can see those cracks fuse back together. The more I roll pastry the more this table gets wiggly. So if you notice it's shaking it's because I do a lot of baking on this table. I do roll the pie dough the same thickness as I do for a typical pie shell. So while a nine inch pie shell is wider it's flatter I still need that diameter of dough to get up the high sides of the springform pan. So really gets rolled to about a quarter inch thick. All right almost there. Now I'll take my springform pan and what I've done actually typically when you buy a springform pan it comes with the lip up. In order to extract the tart easily from the pan and I do this with cheesecakes too I invert the bottom so then the lip is at the bottom and it's easier to get your spatula in and underneath. There we go. I'll sprinkle the bottom with flour like I do a pie shell. No need to grease the sides and now drop this in and you will find just because of the depth of the pan you will have the pastry overlapping in places in order to fit it in and that is okay. That's part of the look and once it's all in place it won't be too much pastry. It won't be too thick and I really take a few minutes just to slide the pastry down the sides to make sure it is reaching that bottom edge. And as I go along I'm starting to press the dough in place. Make sure there are no holes in the bottom. It looks like we're good. Now with the traditional fruit pie you would pinch or make a nice pattern on the outside edge. This we trim away completely. Of course you can save it re-roll it for another little dessert. Maybe a little galette would be nice. There we go. So we've got a nice clean top edge to the pastry. Now I'll pop this in the fridge while I prepare the filling. Now it's time to make the pastry cream filling which is rich and has to be thick enough because it sits so high in the pan that when you slice it you get a clean slice. And it's just a vanilla pastry cream so any way you can build in an extra layer of flavor is pretty important. So instead of using just granulated sugar I like to use light brown sugar so it adds a hint of caramel flavor but you don't see a caramel color when you cut into it. I'll also add my cornstarch which is really what's behind thickening this pastry cream. And just so I don't end up with lumps I always like to whisk my sugar and my cornstarch together. When I make a just a traditional pastry cream to use as a filling in cakes etc I also do this. Okay and now I'll whisk in my milk and some whipping cream. So a normal pastry cream is usually just all milk and maybe you fold in whipped cream afterwards but this we're working some whipping cream for some richness inside. Now let's talk about flavor for a second. I'm relying heavily on vanilla. I'm using vanilla bean paste. I think in some of my other videos I've shown you how to infuse vanilla flavor using a vanilla bean. You slice down the bean lengthwise, scrape out the seeds into the milk. Now a vanilla bean needs heat contact so if that's what you'd prefer to use for this recipe what you'll want to do is heat your milk and cream together with the scraped seeds from your vanilla bean and let that simmer over low heat for about 15 minutes to draw out the flavor from the seeds. I'm using the equivalent which is one tablespoon of vanilla bean paste so the flavor has already been extracted into the liquid and the seeds are visible so you get that beautiful speckle of vanilla bean seeds and the full flavor which is why I don't have to preheat my milk and cream. So I've included all those instructions and the do it this way or that way is all below. So I'm just going to whisk that in and as I heat this custard it will draw out further flavor from the vanilla bean paste. If you don't have access to vanilla bean paste the equivalent of vanilla extract, one tablespoon is absolutely fine. Okay and now for the last bit of richness and a bit of thickening, six egg yolks and I whisk those in well. You know when I first went to cooking school quite some time ago I learned how to make a pastry cream by heating my milk and then having my eggs sugar and cornstarch in a bowl and you would temper add the hot milk into the eggs to introduce it gradually and then put it back on the heat. I've discovered if you have all your ingredients in the pot and they're starting at the same temperature the sugar protects the eggs as you're bringing this up to a full simmer and you won't have your your pastry cream overcook at all. So at this point I just whisk away I've got my heat on medium maybe just a half a degree above medium. I want to bring this to a full simmer until I see a few bubbles break the surface. It'll be obvious because with that quantity of cornstarch this pastry cream is thick. It depends on your stove but it could take anywhere from four to eight minutes. Here's a great tip for you when you see these frothy bubbles on top of your milk disappear then that's the sign that your custard is getting close to reaching its thickening point. There a couple bubbles and right off the heat it comes. I always like to give it a quick whisk off the heat just to keep it moving. Let off some of that steam now that it's reached its full thickening potential. It's nice and silky smooth and let me go grab the tart shell from the fridge. Okay immediately right from the pot this pastry cream gets poured into your cold pie shell. You want to have your oven preheated at this point to 350. So now the filling is fully cooked but we have to bake the pie shell. Just slide that out of the way. You can take a spatula and spread your pastry cream filling in any gaps or edges. Because it's thickened now it won't move a whole lot so want to make sure it's nice and level but it is going to brown and caramelize on top. It takes a good 40 minutes to bake this flan until the edges of the pastry have browned nicely and you will see it'll only happen in the last 10 minutes. You'll get a almost a crust and a deep caramelization on the surface of the flan and that's when you know it's ready. And here it is look at that gorgeous browning. Now you definitely want to give your flan chance to cool to room temperature and that can take about two hours and then chill it completely. So this is definitely a make-ahead dessert. I just love the idea that simplicity of the caramelized custard on top the flaky pastry the rich creamy vanilla flavored cream underneath. All right let's take this out of the pan which with a pie crust it pops out wonderfully easy and I love the few sort of creases and natural folds you get from lining the pie shell. And there we go it's nice and stable. Pop it on our gorgeous pie plate. Now when you actually see flan parisienne in patisserie windows you'll see they look super glossy and that's because they're finished typically with a baker's apricot glaze. It's just a clear apricot jam. You can take just a typical apricot jam if it's very set you can heat it. You can also use apple jelly as an option. This I think I just need to give it a little stir to loosen it and I'm just going to dip my brush in it and dab a little jam on for shine. So you want to be gentle although the top of this flan does develop a really nice sort of surface it's it's the one time you want a pudding skin on top of your tart so it doesn't bruise and it cuts cleanly. There we go you want to put enough on you don't see brush strokes. This isn't a apricot jam with lots of pieces in it. There we go even some on the crust. Wonderful now I know you're going to want to get creative with this aren't you and think of what other flavors you could add to your custard. You could make an earl grey tea flavored flan you could add matcha you could I have seen chocolate ones out there though I think when the characteristic is this caramelization nothing beats the traditional vanilla. I'll grab a slice so you can see the interior and also get a handle on how easily it slices. Oh look at that a clean precise slice you've got the gloss the caramelization a perfectly cooked pastry you can see that it's dry and perfectly cooked on the bottom so you're going to get that buttery crispness with every bite. Oh they know how to do it right in Paris don't they this is two simple elements but two very important components of French baking a pot brisee or a pie dough and a pastry cream. This is truly a glamorous dessert to make and I hope you will give it a try leave your notes below we are baking up a storm here we've got so many recipes in store I know you'll join me every week for something new and fresh and here's a little little tip did you know that I was trained as a chef a savory chef before I went into pastry that's a little hint of things to come let me know if you'd like to see some more savory recipes or full-on cooking recipes. I'm here for you it's been a pleasure thank you for joining me for this bake-along and I'll see you again soon. It's silky and smooth that vanilla flavor comes through but it's not over the top rich definitely not heavy.