SUMMER Fruit Flan

A great summer alternative to Christmas Pudding. Light and refreshing. Some alternative ideas for the recipe. Put makrut lime (kaffir) leaves in the milk as it heats instead of using vanilla in the custard. Drizzle either homemade or bought Lemon curd over your fruit instead of berry coulis. To save time buy sweet short pastry and don't bother with the sauce.

Unbalanced

% Daily Values based on a 2,000 calorie diet

Step 1

1 Process the flour, sugar, butter, salt and lemon zest

Step 2

2 Whisk the egg, add to the flour and sugar mixture, then process until the mixture forms a ball of dough.

Step 3

3 Wrap dough in plastic film and refrigerate for at least one hour

Step 4

4 After refrigeration, roll out the pastry dough to 3mm thickness and lay it into a 24-28cm flan tin, pushing the pastry into the corners. Trim off excess pastry.

Step 5

5 Refrigerate uncooked flan shell for another 30 minutes

Step 6

6 Bake flan shell blind at 200°C for 15-20 minutes. Lower the temperature to 180°C and cook for another 10 minutes until the pastry is crisp and biscuit-coloured. Allow to cool on wire rack.

Step 7

1 Whisk the eggs and sugar in a bowl until almost white,then mix in the flour and cornflour

Step 8

2 Bring the milk to the boil in a thick-bottomed pan, or use the microwave

Step 9

3 Pour the milk into the egg and sugar mixture, whisking as you pour.

Step 10

4 Put mixture into a clean pan and stir until it comes to the boil

Step 11

5 Add a few drops of vanilla essence or a vanilla pod, then remove from the heat and pour into a basin. Sprinkle the top with a little castor or icing sugar to prevent a skin forming.

Step 12

Boil the sugar and water for 1 minute then pass through a fine sieve into a clean bowl. Allow to cool.

Step 13

Fill the cooked flan case with pastry Cream. If you like, add 2 tablespoons of Cointreau and 1/2 cup whipped cream.

Step 14

Arrange fruit garnish on top of custard cream

Step 15

Pour coulis over fruit garnish over slices of flan on serving.