Flan Tins

Does size matter?
First posted 23 August 2011 - https://sites.google.com/site/foodieshare/

An investigation into the cubic capacity of flan tins and an explanation for a thin custard filling. 

Well dear reader with most things in life I would definitely be a 'certainly not... good things come in little packages' kind of guy (those of you that know me will understand) but when it comes to quiche, tarts, flans or to be more precise the tin they are made in, size certainly does matter. Although as we will see bigger is not necessarily better.

Let me explain...

For many years I have been making quiche, tarts and flans in my fluted, loose bottomed Silverwood flan tin without much thought or indeed any real success. I have struggled to line it with pastry, which I have always put down to my poor pastry making skills – something to do with warm hands and cold heart. In addition, with the exception of my cauliflower tart, which I must try to find the recipe for again, I have never produced anything with a filling of any real depth. This was embarrassingly highlighted a week or so ago when I invited a friend round for tea.

Thinking I was probably becoming a little predictable serving fruit sauce drizzled over ice cream for dessert, albeit different fruit each time, I foolishly decided on a custard tart with a few red currents as a garnish. The makings of the custard were duly procured, as was a roll of ready made sweet shortcrust pastry (I've already explained I struggle with pastry). To cut a short story even shorter, after much swearing, re-rolling and patching, the flan tin was eventually lined and blind baked, the custard mixture added and the whole lot baked to perfection. Unfortunately when cooked and de-tinned (that may not be the proper terminology but you get the idea) it looked like a beautiful set custard lake surrounded by battlements of gigantic proportions. Yes, it had happened again! When cut, a quick glance at the cross section of the slice confirmed my worst fears – the ratio of pastry base to custard was as near as dam it 1:1. My guest was very polite and restricted her comments to the creaminess of the custard and the sweetness of the pastry (shop bought!). It was time to sort this out once and for all!

Now after a little research it would seem that most quiche, tart or flan recipes are based on a 20cm flan tin, indeed any recipe worth it's salt would state the size of tin to use – however this information is usually in the pastry bit and as I have said, I don't do pastry! My flan tin measured in at 24cm which is, it seems, exceptionally large. Quite why I have a catering size flan tin I have no idea but when you start doing the maths an awful lot is explained. A 24cm flan tin has a base area of 452cm² that is 138cm² more than the more normal 20cm one. The numbers become even more dramatic when you look at volume. A 20cm tin with a depth of say 3.5cm comes in with a volume of just under 1100cm³. My flan tin has a depth of a full 4cm, that works out at a volume in excess of 1800cm³, that's a full 700cm³ more. Now I don't know what the cubic volume of a large egg is and I haven't yet hit on the best ratio of eggs to cream/milk for the perfect filling but even I can workout that you need more of it to fill a 24cm tin than a 20cm one. 

I suppose the moral of the story is, read the recipe fully even if you are going to ignore half of it!

Oh and don't forget 1cm³ is 1cc which equals 1ml – ain’t metric wonderful...

Footnote – A couple of days after the embarrassing custard tart episode I picked up my friend and took her on a quest to find a 20cm flan tin – lucky girl. By way of thanks I did treat her to a cup of tea and a custard slice. The slice certainly had thicker custard filling than my tart! Custard slices are not easy to eat and I noticed we both adopted different strategy’s towards this problem but that's for another day...

Update – I've found my cauliflower tart recipe and surprise surprise it actually specifies a 23cm flan tin. Now the difference between a 23cm and a 24cm tin... oh never mind!