For Flans is a traditional English recipe from the late Middle Ages for a flan containing an egg, cottage cheese and egg filling flavoured with saffron milk. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic English version of: For Flans.
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This is the English equivalent of the Spanish Flaón. Both of these recipes ultimately derive from French flan or cheese pies/tarts.
Original Recipe:
For flaunes (from Liber cure Cocorum 1430 (Sloane MS. 1986))
Take new chese and grynde hit fayre,
In morter with egges, with out dysware;
Put powder þer to of sugur, I say,
Coloure hit with safrone ful wele þou may;
Put hit in cofyns þat bene fayre,
And bake hit forthe, I þe pray.
Translation: 97. For flans.
Take new cheese and grind it fair,
In a mortar with eggs, without doubt;
Put powder thereto of sugar, I say,
Color it with saffron quite well you may;
Put it in coffins that are fair,
And bake it forth, I thee pray.
Modern Redaction:
Ingredients:
For the Dough:
125g (1 cup) flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/2 tbsp water
3 tbsp melted butter
2 eggs
225g (1/2 lb) curd cheese (or you can make your own curd cheese/fromage frais)
100g (1/2 cup) sugar
2 tbsp milk
generous pinch of saffron threads
Method:
Crumble the saffron into the milk and set aside.
Sift together the flour and salt and stir in the water and oil. Roll the dough out, fold in 3 parts, business letter style... Roll again, then fold and roll 2 more times. This creates rough-puff like layers.
Use the resultant dough to fit the base and sides of a 20cm (8in) loose bottom cake tin.
In a bowl, beat together the eggs with the curd cheese, sugar and saffron milk. Spread this mixture over the dough. Transfer to the centre of an oven pre-heated to 180°C (350°F) and bake for 40 minutes, or until the filling is set.
Mix together the honey and rose water. Dribble this mixture over the pie, then dust with cinnamon. Serve warm.
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