Gluten Free Chocolate and Pear Flan

I’ve had this Medium account for a few years with the intention of sharing my gluten free recipes and my research into diet and health, I realised that I had shared a few recipes on Twitter and thought it would be a good idea to put these into a proper shareable document.

Alas my pear tree has gone on strike this year but this gluten free, pear and chocolate flan has been a consistent favourite in my family for a few years. Serve with a raspberry compote, vanilla ice cream or a dollop of cream, a dash of alcohol in the cream works really well for the adults too.

Ingredients

✔ For the pastry

50 grams of ground almonds (Marks and Spencer, has no peanut warnings)

100 grams rice flour (Doves Farm, Sainsbury’s)

25 grams caster sugar

80 grams butter (softened)

4 desert spoons of water to bind the dough

✔ For the filling

100 grams butter

85 grams caster sugar

120 grams ground almonds

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla essence

2 Large eggs

185 grams melted dark chocolate (then leave to cool for 3 minutes)

3 or 4 Pears 🍐 quartered, peeled and cored

Method

1. Pre-heat oven on 200 C.
2. Mix all the pastry ingredients to form a large dough ball to roll-out
3. As this pastry is gluten free it works to put the dough ball into the centre of 9 inch flan dish (grease the dish with a little butter first) then roll with a small rolling pin. Push / crimp the pastry into the edged to create a flan base.
4. Before starting the filling, place the pastry case into the oven to blind bake for 12 minutes
5. Whilst the base is firming up, mix the eggs, chocolate, vanilla essence and ground almonds with a spatula, stirring well
6. Remove the pastry case from the oven and use the spatula to spread into the corners
7. Create a fan / circle using your pears, pushing them lightly into the gooey mixture, I usually make a round piece for the centre by shaping
8. Bake for a further 30 minutes, until the chocolate ganache rises and mostly bakes set
9. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slight, then dust with icing sugar
10. Serve warm, but equally good (perhaps better) cold the next day

Enjoy!