I have a really old cookbook from England called The A to Z of Cooking. In fact, it was the first cookbook I owned after buying it at about 11 year’s old from a church jumble sale. I think it’s circa 1970~.
I remember pouring over this book as a teenager wanting to make every single dish in it and marveling at the photos of food. One of the dishes I made multiple times for my family was the French Apple Flan. The photos now looks so old and dated but I still love this book.
After being invited to a friend’s house for Thanksgiving I told her I would make Apple Pie but after thinking about it, I decided to try and make the French Apple Flan dish I last made about 30 years ago. Yikes I just made myself sound so old! Just in case it all went wrong Thursday morning, I did a trial run through tonight.
French Apple Flan
Adapted from an a recipe in The A to Z of Cooking
Serves 6
Ingredients
Pastry
2 cups of Flour
Pinch of Salt
2 cup of butter
1 egg
Water
Filling
4 apples – I used red sweet apples – peeled, cored and quartered
1/2 cup of white wine
Strip of lemon rind
1/4 cup of butter
1/2 cup of sugar
4 crisp apples – I used granny smith as I love the tartness – peeled cored and thinly sliced
5 tablespoons of apricot jam
1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice
Directions
For the pastry (the old fashioned way). Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Add the butter and run in until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Mix in the egg and enough water to make a smooth dough. Chill for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
I did have a slice and am thrilled at how it turned out. Really tasty, not overly sweet and scrumptious with vanilla ice cream. There may be another slice coming my way later this evening. For tomorrow I think I am going to do half white sugar and have brown and use the brown sugar to cover the sliced apples. Brown sugar crystallizes a little better and gives it that lovely candy apple look. We shall see what the diners think.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
