This pastry recipe is used for sweet flans and tarts. There is enough to line a 20cm flan ring. In school exams in the 1970s a fluted flan ring was used for sweet dishes and a plain flan ring used for savoury quiches. Now all the rules have gone!
Ingredients
100g sugar
1 large egg
125g butter
250g plain flour
Method
- Put the sugar, egg, butter and vanilla extract in the food processor and whizz until creamy.
- Add the flour and mix a little more. Turn the mixture into a bowl and work to a dough.
- To make a flan, roll out the pastry between two pieces of non stick paper – this saves using extra flour.
- Line a 20cm/8″ flan tin. Leave in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill. This lets the gluten in the flour relax, so that the pastry is not so tough.
- Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6/ 180C Fan.
- To bake blind, line the pastry case with baking paper and baking beans and bake for 15 minutes. Remove the beans and paper and cook for a further 5 minutes to dry out the pastry base. It is now ready for your filling.
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