The brand "Miel & Miels" challenged me to make a recipe with one of their delicious honeys. So I went with a flan with fall flavors: pear, honey and tonka. For the honey, I chose the “marriage of pear, tonka bean and honey”, a marvel in the mouth.
For those who don't yet know them, Miel & Miels creates gourmet and refined honeys. Weddings were imagined as an invitation to creativity and to invent new tasting moments around a product that retains all its naturalness and authenticity. The honeys are harvested directly from a cooperative of beekeepers in France who control their entire harvest from the hive to the jar with their own honey packaging workshop. I am extremely honored today to offer you a recipe full of flavors with exceptional honey.
For this flan, I took Quentin Lechat's recipe and readapted it. The sweet dough is relatively the same as that of the vanilla flan, but I wanted to add a little brown vergeoise to "color" my dough more (technique used by the "King of flans" Juchamalo).
For the interior, I chose to flavor my pastry cream with tonka bean and add an insert of pear compote flavored with honey (a combination of pear, tonka bean and honey). As with every flan recipe, the ideal is to let it cool completely and freeze it for a few minutes in the refrigerator before unmolding it. So, a word of advice, be patient!
Ingredients for a flan for 6 to 8 people (circle 14cm in diameter by 6cm high) :
The sweet dough (to make the day before):
125g butter
1 pinch of fleur de sel
20g of brown vergeoise
70g of icing sugar
1 whole egg
30g roasted hazelnut powder
250g T55 flour
1- In an oven previously heated to 150°C, roast the hazelnut powder for 15 minutes until lightly browned.
2- In your bowl fitted with the sheet, sand the flour, the icing sugar, the sugar, the hazelnut powder with the cold butter and a pinch of fleur de sel.
3- Add the egg and mix roughly (there should be plenty of pieces of butter remaining).
4- Remove the crumble of dough from your work surface and start by rolling it out with the palm of your hand in several steps. Then form a ball and mill again more roughly about 3 times. Gather the dough and divide it into two parts.
5- Spread each piece of dough between two sheets of baking paper to 3 mm thickness (one part for the bottom and a wider part for the edges).
6- Reserve in the refrigerator for several hours.
7- In a dessert circle 14 cm in diameter and 6 cm high, line the edges with a strip of silpain mat cut at the same height as the circle (this will allow you to obtain uniform cooking and a nice grid pattern).
8- Make one or two strips of dough 7 cm high and darken the circle. Then place a circle of dough at the bottom slightly smaller than the diameter of the circle (approximately 13 cm in diameter) and make sure everything adheres well.
9- Reserve everything in the refrigerator overnight to allow the dough to crust.
Pear honey and tonka bean compote (to make at least 4 hours before):
450g not too ripe pears
16g of honey (combination of Pear, tonka bean and Honey – Honey and honeys)
4g of sugar
4.5g of pectin
1- Wash, peel and cut the pears into cubes.
2- Stew them with honey for a few minutes.
3- Add the sugar mixed with the pectin and boil for a good minute (drain the juice).
4- Transfer to a 12cm diameter plastic circle and place in the freezer.
Tonka bean pastry cream (to make the same day) :
450g whole milk
95g caster sugar
102g egg yolks
38g cornstarch
128g of whole liquid cream
65g semi-salted butter
½ tonka bean
1- In a saucepan, bring the milk, a third of the sugar and half the grated tonka bean to a boil.
2- In a salad bowl, whisk the yolks with the remaining sugar and the cornstarch.
3- When the milk is hot, pour half of it onto the yolk-sugar-cornstarch mixture while whisking vigorously. Then pour everything into the pan.
4- Return the pan to medium heat, stirring constantly. Once the cream begins to thicken, keep boiling for about 2 minutes.
5- Off the heat add the semi-salted butter, mix. Then add the whole liquid cream. Mix well.
Cooking :
1- Preheat the oven to 165°C.
2- Cut off the excess sweet dough and place the circle (itself placed on a perforated baking sheet covered with a silpain mat) for a few minutes in the freezer.
3- Once the oven is sufficiently hot, pour the slightly warmed cream into the bottom of the dough halfway. Add the pear insert by pushing it in slightly. Add the remaining pastry cream almost to the brim.
4- Bake for 45 minutes.
5- Then let the flan cool completely for 3 hours before placing it in the refrigerator for around 20 minutes.
6- Then carefully unmold the flan and enjoy.
