This is a rich creamy pastry flan, filled with fresh egg custard, with almond added for extra flavour and richness.

Serves:	6
Preparation time:	25 minutes
Cooking time:	25 minutes
Oven position:	top
Oven temperature:	gas 6, 200°C, 400°F
Ingredients:	6oz fleur pastry 175g 3/4 cup
filling:	1/2oz cornflour 15g
	3 egg yolks
	3/4 pint milk 450ml 2 cups
	1oz caster sugar 25g 11/2 tablespoons
	3oz ground almonds 75g 1/2 cup
	a few drops vanilla essence
	1/4 pint whipped cream 150ml 1/2 cup
	1oz grated almonds 25g 1/6 cup
	4-6 glacé cherries

Method:
Roll out pastry and line an 8 inch cake tin, line with greaseproof paper and cover with rice. Bake in oven for 25 minutes. Remove rice and paper from pastry when pastry is almost baked; put pastry back into the oven for 5 minutes to dry out. Blend cornflour with egg yolks. Add a little of the cold milk. Put remaining milk into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Pour heated milk onto the egg yolks and cornflour stirring all the time. Rinse saucepan in cold water. Pour the liquid back into saucepan, bring back to boiling point over a gentle heat stirring continuously with a wooden spoon. Add sugar, ground almonds and vanilla essence. Pour into pastry shell. Allow to cool. Decorate with roses of cream, almonds and cherries.

From the Appletree Press title: The Irish Country Kitchen.
Also from Appletree: A Little Irish Cookbook.