I am finally getting around to writing about August’s Bouchon Bakery Challenge here in early September. The recipe I chose was Apricot Flan Tart, which can be found on page 141 of the Bouchon Bakery Cookbook.
Astute readers will notice that the pictures don’t quite look like an Apricot Flan Tart. Instead, they look more like Blueberry Flan Tartlettes. It turns out apricots are not longer available in August (I had never really paid attention before), so I decided to try blueberries instead. Also, the tart as written is very large, so I cut the recipe in half and made three smaller tarts.
English Muffin Rings
The recipe has you use a cake ring instead of a tart pan. I don’t own any cake rings, but I found that my English muffin rings were the right height when I stacked them up one on top of the other. It was a little tricky getting the Pâte Brisée dough into the rings, but otherwise they worked well.
Pâte Brisée in the rings
The Pâte Brisée used an interesting technique that I had never seen before. To start, half the flour is placed in the bowl of a stand mixer. The butter is added a bit at a time, and then thoroughly blended in. Next, the rest of the flour is added and mixed just until combined. Finally, a bit of ice water is added and mixed until incorporated. The result was a very smooth dough that was easy to work with and had a very nice texture when baked.
I loved the custard filling, and it tasted great with the Pâte Brisée and blueberries. The custard makes use of Bird’s custard powder, which I found at World Market. Vanilla bean seeds are added for extra flavor.
These little tarts were delicious! We all loved them. My husband liked that they were not too sweet, and we both felt like the blueberries tasted better than apricots would with the custard filling. I would like to try the full-size tart some time.
Recipe Notes
- By cutting the recipe in half and making three small tarts instead of one large tart, I had to play around with the baking times. For the crust, I baked it a total of 10 – 20 minutes less than the time recommended for the larger tart. The filled tart was baked for 1 hour 10 minutes, rather than the suggested 1 hour 20 minutes to 1 hour 40 minutes. I felt like I overcooked the custard filling a bit, so next time I would bake it for only 1 hour (if I were making small tarts again).
Altitude Adjustments
No adjustments were needed for this recipe.
Next Month
We’re making progress! There are only 3 chapters left that I have not made something from. We’ll tackle something from the Cookies chapter in September: TKOs (page 40). I will share my results with you near September 24th (hopefully!).
From Scratch 