Claire Verneil’s vanilla flan

Vanilla flan

1. 1

   Prepare the egg mixture

   In a bowl, mix the eggs with half the sugar, then stir in the cornflour and whipping cream. Split the vanilla pods lengthways, scrape out the seeds and add them to the mixture. Keep the pods for the milk.

   6 min
2. 2

   Heat the vanilla milk

   Bring the milk to the boil with the split vanilla pods and the remaining sugar. Remove the pods.

   5 min
3. 3

   Pour the milk over the eggs

   Gradually pour the hot milk over the egg mixture, whisking as you go.

   2 min
4. 4

   Thicken the custard

   Pour everything back into the saucepan. Thicken over a low heat, whisking constantly, until the custard is smooth.

   5 min
5. 5

   Prepare the tin

   Preheat the oven to 210 °C. Grease a springform tin and pour in the custard.

   5 min 210 °C
6. 6

   Start baking

   Bake the flan for 15 minutes at 210 °C.

   15 min 210 °C
7. 7

   Continue baking at a lower temperature

   Without taking the flan out, lower the oven temperature to 180 °C and bake for a further 40 minutes.

   40 min 180 °C
8. 8

   Cool the flan

   Remove the flan from the oven and let it cool to lukewarm. Then refrigerate for about 4 hours, until thoroughly chilled.

   300 min
9. 9

   Remove from the tin and serve

   Carefully remove the thoroughly chilled flan from the tin before slicing.

   2 min