FRUIT FLAN

My friend Pauline recently made a fruit flan with a sponge base using a mould with a raised bottom, a real blast from the past.

This set me on a mission, a fruitless (sorry for the pun) quest to find my own old fruit flan tin from the 1970’s.  I can picture it still, a pale aluminium tin manufactured specifically to bake the sponge flans that were the height of sophistication at dinner parties and posh Sunday teas back then.  Using the recipe from my Homepride Flourgraders’ recipe book I would create many a stunning table centrepiece, using tinned mandarin orange segments, grape halves and Quick Jel.

I have no idea what happened to that tin.  I hunted high and low, but it was nowhere to be found.  I can’t believe that I took it to the charity shop, less still that I have lost it.  How do you lose a cake tin?

Anyway, Lakeland to the rescue, I acquired another one – and was delighted to find that Quick Jel is still readily available in supermarkets. 

There is an essential difference between a flan tin and a tart tin.  A sponge flan tin has the raised bit in the middle so that a well is formed in the sponge to hold the fruit.  A tart tin makes a pastry shell which does the same.  Sponge flans seem to have gone out of fashion and I dare say that most people would buy a sponge flan case rather than make their own.  I also noticed that they too are still readily available in supermarkets, which suggests that presumably someone must buy them, but I haven’t actually seen one on a menu or served at gatherings for decades.

For this flan I used the Be-Ro book recipe for a whisked sponge, one that has no butter in it, like a Swiss roll sponge.  I added a little lemon zest to improve the flavour of it and filled it with some of the raspberries and blueberries that I got last summer from a pick-your-own place and stored in the freezer.  And of course the essential Quick Jel.

I was very pleased with it.  You can’t beat raspberries for flavour, especially in winter, but even so it was very nice indeed.  So nice that I can’t wait for a need to make another one – using mandarin orange segments, grapes and possibly some kiwi slices.  Sophisticated or what !!

Ingredients

2 medium eggs

75g caster sugar

75g self raising flour

grated zest of ½ a lemon

fresh, tinned or frozen (thawed) fruit, about a tin or a large punnet should be enough

1 sachet Quick Jel powder (or you could make your own glaze using arrowroot or half a packet of made up jelly)

Method

To make the flan case, preheat the oven to 220°C / 200° fan / gas mk 7.  Grease a 20cm flan tin and line the raised up bit of the base with a circle of baking paper (to ensure easy removal of the flan).

Break the eggs into a bowl and whisk lightly, using a hand held electric whisk.  Then add the sugar and whisk well for several minutes until pale and thick.  Lightly fold in the flour and lemon zest.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 7-9 minutes, until golden and firm to the touch.  Turn out onto a wire rack.

When completely cool, fill with your chosen fruit and top with Quick Jel made up to the packet instructions.  Leave in a cool place for at least 30 minutes for the Jel to set.  For added retro flair you could pipe cream rosettes using whipped cream around the margin of the fruit when the Jel or glaze has set.

Serve with a dollop of whipped cream, crème fraîche, or a spoonful of single cream over each slice.

Serves 6.

PEACH MELBA CAKE (forgotten cakes and bakes of 2015)

This cake was inspired by a visit to Waitrose in early December.  On this occasion we got there late in the day and found punnets of beautiful raspberries knocked down in price.  I couldn’t resist buying two of them.

I used some of them to make a raspberry trifle, one of Nick’s favourites.  All the time I was making it I was planning a cake with the rest of the fruit and at the back of my mind I had a vague recollection of a cake in a book by Lisa Faulkner.  The cake was called Fantasy Cake, in a book called “Recipes from my mother to my daughter”.  With me back in the UK and the book in France I resorted to the internet and found the recipe on the Waitrose website - which has now morphed into a completely different recipe altogether.  (This is a regular occurrence and I wonder if recipes by "celebrity chefs" and suchlike are time limited, i.e. Waitrose only had permission to use it for a certain amount of time, which they will, presumably, have paid for>)

It was the following day that I made the cake and by then some of the remaining bargain raspberries were decidedly too far gone, so to make up the weight of fruit, I added some sliced tinned peaches, thinking of how well the two fruits go together in a peach melba dessert.  The recipe suggests you can use any fruit you are fond of, but I think soft fruit probably work best and you can't go wrong with a little bit of summer in the middle of winter.
Instead of using the creaming method, I employed a tip from Delia Smith and used spreadable butter and the all-in-one method to make the cake.

The cake was delicious.  Moist, fruity and almondy. lovely by itself, with a dash of cream and, later, warmed and served for dessert with custard.  Definitely a recipe I shall be making again.

Just in the nick of time and being ever so slightly cheeky (I think the challenge was meant to use up Christmas leftovers but I never got around to making my parsnip and mincemeat cake – yet) I am linking this post to this month’s Love Cake Challenge organised by Ness of Jibber Jabber UK, which is, as hinted at, “waste not”.  You can see the details here.

PEACH MELBA CAKE (FANTASY CAKE)

Ingredients
175g spreadable butter
150g caster sugar
150g self-raising flour, sifted
2 eggs
3 tablespoons milk
100g ground almonds
1 teaspoon almond essence
200g raspberries
200g tinned sliced peaches, drained and cut into chunks


Method
Preheat the oven to 160°C / 140° fan and grease and line a 23cm loose-bottomed cake tin, or spray a Bundt tin liberally with cake release spray. 


Put all the ingredients except for the fruit into a large mixing bowl and mix with a hand mixer until well combined.  Fold in the fruit.


Spoon the mixture into the cake tin and level the top.


Bake for about ¾-1¼ hours.  Check after 45 minutes – mine was done in 50 minutes.


Turn the cake out of the tin onto a wire rack to cool and dust with icing sugar.




Cuts into 8-10 good slices.