Flan Cake with Raspberries - From Mom

When I asked my family to help me with the list of recipes to include, my sister Allana came back with the warning that getting some of these recipes out of Mom was going to be difficult, reckoning that some of the things she baked are carefully guarded secrets. I brushed off that statement, nah my mommy wouldn't do that to me, she's sent me recipes in the past, yes they're full of spelling mistakes but it's easy to figure out, she's just bad at typing, she wouldn't sabotage my project.

Because it's unseasonably warm this autumn and there are still local British raspberries in stores, I thought I'd better make this cake up, otherwise I won't be able to afford it until next summer. I'm now starting to wonder if Allana was right, reading the email Mom sent of this recipe I realise that there are gaping holes in the method instructions, some quite significant like what temperature to set the oven to and how long to bake it! This cake fall into a catagory that I would call 'trophy baking' the kind of thing you make when you want to show off your skills, it's one of the recipes that only Mom baked and usually only on special occasions, and given how little praise she received for her cooking over the years, I might be understanding of why she wants to keep some baking secrets. However, my project is to share these recipes with my sisters so they don't disappear, the instructions below are tainted by my newly formed suspicions, it came out beautifully so whether my mistrust is valid or not I must have done something right.

This was a summer cake that Mom baked when we had company, she used a flan case that resulted in a thin sheet of cake that when turned out onto a plate had a raised fluted edge, she covered the top with raspberries that formed concentric circles to the centre and glazed the fruit so that it shined. The final result was a cake that could have sat in the window of a patisserie shop confident in it's ability to entice you away from chocolate eclairs and towering layered mousse cakes.

Other things missing from Mom's instructions, what did she make the glaze from and did she put some sort of barrier between the fruit and the cake to stop the cake going soggy, because when she upturned the flan she put the fruit next to the more porous side of the cake that baked against the tin, and she's at a school reunion this weekend so I can't even call her up to ask, score: Mom 1, Jenn 0.

It's a good thing that this recipe is small because my first attempt at batter had to go down the drain.  I might have curdled the eggs because the milk was too hot, or I might have put too much flour in on the first alternating turn, whatever I did it formed little knots that would take crazy beating to get rid of and result in a tough cake. Either way it didn't look anything like the very few times I witnessed the batter when this cake was going into the oven and I thought it best to not even put it in the pan  (somehow Mom managed to avoid an audience when baking this).

On a side note, this recipe must have made its way into Mom's repertoire before we had chickens because she included the comment 'you get a good sponge with only 2 eggs' and frankly once we had chickens rationing egg use in the summer wasn't an issue, rather the opposite. Officially this recipe is either called Lazy Daisy Cake or Hot Milk Sponge, and it is light and soft right out to the edges and delicate, and it really is a cake for grown ups.

Flan Cake with Raspberries

 

Pre-heat the oven to around 350^F or 180^C

 

Grease and flour a (probably) 11 inch round flan tin, or a 9 inch square cake pan (like I did if you don't have a flan tin).

 

In a small sauce pan on a low to medium setting, heat up:

1/2 cup milk

1 tbsp butter

1/2 tsp vanilla (because I don't believe for a second that Mom didn't add this)

do not let the milk scald, it should get hot but you should still be able to briefly stick your finger in it, don't let it form a skin on top or catch on the bottom

 

In a mixer beat until light and fluffy:

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

 

add the sugar slowly, a few spoonfuls at a time, it should take 10 minutes to add in all the sugar then leave it to beat for a few minutes more

 

In a separate bowl, mix together:

1 cup flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

 

Add the flour mix and the milk mix in alternating turns, starting and ending with flour, at least 4 turns of flour and 3 of milk. Pour the milk slowly and from a good height in a very thin stream to cool it down. Make sure that everything is mixed before switching between the two.

 

Scrape it all into your cake tin, it should be a very thin liquid-like batter.

 

Bake for around 16 - 18 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, it is a thin cake so will be fast to bake. I set the timer for 20 minutes but took it out at 18, and that was a bit too long.

 

 

Once out of the oven, give it a few minutes to settle and come away from the sides then turn it out onto a cooling rack.  I've never had a cake so easily fall out of the pan, I didn't even have to run a knife round the sides.

Once cool, put it on a plate and arrange the raspberries like little mountain ranges on top, then pour over the glaze.  I put the top of the cake up because, like I said, I didn't know if I needed to use a barrier to avoid soaking the cake with the fruit or the glaze.

Glaze

I remember Mom pouring the glaze onto the fruit, and it must have had some sort of agent (possibly cornstarch) to make it cling thickly to the fruit.  I don't have her recipe so I had to find one, it's not the same, if I get hers I'll update.

In a small sauce pan, mix:
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch (corn flour)

Then stir in until dissolved:
1/4 cup water
2 tbsp lemon juice
Run your finger round the inside of the pan above the water level to make sure you have all the sugar granules mixed in.

Bring it to a boil over medium heat and allow to boil for 1 minute, then set it aside to cool, do not stir once you start to heat it. 

I don't have much experience making glazes but I know that sugar always wants to return to its original state if disturbed while heating (so granulated sugar will go grainy in the finished product if stirred or more sugar is added, syrups will not harden, etc).

Once completely cool, pour the glaze evenly over the fruit - spoon it out if, like me, you don't trust your pouring but can't be bothered to brush it over the fruit.  If you have a flan tin so that your cake will have a little retaining wall to hold the glaze in, double or tripple the glaze recipe, so that you have a full layer of it coating your raspberries, mine just ran over the sides of the cake and under it so I had to stop.

Invite your friends round for a slice, watch them be impressed.

Score: Mom 1, Jenn 1 (I love my mommy, but she has some answers to give on this).