Cherry flan

The cherry season is here! I'm so excited because I'm a big fan of cherries in any form. LOL.

I made this cherry flan with slight modification for healthy options. There have been lots of "fatty" discussion among my colleagues lately because one of my colleague's husband has been diagnosed with high cholesterol level. We are trying to look for substitution for butter but without compromising the taste.

For this flan, I made the pastry from scratch which means I can control the amount of butter in the pastry, Then, I have swapped the 150g butter in the flan filling to 100g of Alfa one rice bran oil which contain no cholesterol and trans-fatty acids with reduced saturated fats and the best thing is it has the taste similar to butter!

I told my colleagues about this flan and we are excited with the result...

 

 

Here's the recipe from the Dec 2010 issue of BBC Australian GoodFood magazine

Preheat oven to 160°C fan force. Line a loose based 34 cm x 11 cm tart pan with 2 sheet of thawed frozen sweet pastry. 

(I made mine from scratch, mine is 1 cup flour, 1/3 cup icing sugar, 80g cold unsalted butter, cut in pieces, 1 egg yolk, a few drop of vanilla extract, all mixed in a food processor, rest in fridge for 30 min or more, rolled and line the pan, cut out and discard the excess pastry at the edges)
 

Bake for 15 min until golden. Scatter 300g  pitted cherries (I've used pitted can cherries to avoid the cherries from weeping during baking. Alternatively, I would suggest cooking the cherries in syrup before baking.) over base of tart shell. Using an electric mixer, beat 2 eggs, 1/2 cup caster sugar, 2 tbsp plain flour until thick and pale. Heat 150g unsalted butter in a saucepan until butter is melted, golden and nutty aroma. (I use Alfa one (100g) for healthier replacement). Quickly beat hot butter into egg mixture until well combined, then pour over cherries in tart shell. Bake for 40-45 min until golden

Happy Baking

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