No. 3175

Pear and Apple Flawn

Flan aux Poires et aux Pommes

Line a flawn ring the same as for apricot flawn (No. 3170); fill the bottom halfway up with fine well-reduced apple marmalade (No. 3668); over lay peeled and cored pears or apples, cut either in four or in quarter-inch slices; range them the way they are cut into a rosette on the marmalade, bestrew with sugar and cook in a hot oven. When done thoroughly, remove, brush over with apple (No. 3668) and currant jelly (No. 3670), half and half, diluted with a little syrup.

← No. 3174 Meringue Flawn Cold Entremets — Creams, Jellies & Charlottes No. 3176 Garnishings for Cold Desserts →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes in shorthand for a professional kitchen: three cross-references and no quantities, times or sizes. Everything hangs on the marmalade being dry enough to hold the fruit up.

Reduce the marmalade hardThis is the hinge. The recipe calls for "fine well-reduced" apple marmalade (No. 3668), i.e. a thick apple paste stiff enough to hold the fruit up. If it is still loose it will weep into the pastry during baking and the base will be raw and grey.
A flawn ring is a tart ringA straight-sided bottomless metal ring set on a baking sheet; Ranhofer gives no size here. A loose-bottomed tart tin does the same job. "Line" means lining the ring with short pastry, chilled firm before filling.
"Hot oven"Ranhofer gives no temperatures anywhere; a hot oven is conventionally read today as somewhere around 425F, dropping to 400F once the pastry has set if the fruit is colouring faster than the crust. The bottom of the tart needs direct heat, so bake low in the oven or on a preheated sheet.
Cutting the fruit"In four" means quartered lengthwise; the recipe offers quarters or quarter-inch slices equally, ranged "the way they are cut" into a rosette, overlapping in rings from the outside in. Firm pears — Bosc, Conference — hold their shape; ripe Bartlett will collapse into the marmalade.
The sugarThe recipe says only "bestrew with sugar": a light dusting, on the order of two or three tablespoons for a tart of nine inches. It draws moisture to the surface and caramelises the fruit edges; more than that and it pools and burns.
The glazeEqual parts apple marmalade and red currant jelly, warmed and let down with a little sugar syrup until it brushes on thin. Apply while the tart is still warm so it sets to a clear film rather than sitting in droplets. Sieved apricot jam plus currant jelly is the usual modern substitute.
Timing and donenessReckon on 35 to 45 minutes. "Done thoroughly" refers to the pastry as much as the fruit: the underside should be dry and coloured, which is easier to check with a loose-bottomed tin than with a ring.
Yield and serviceA flawn of about nine inches would serve eight. The page sits next to the cold entremets material, which suggests it was sent out cool or at room temperature rather than hot from the oven.

A Little History

"Flawn" is the old English form of the French flan, both traced to a Frankish root meaning a flat cake, and in Ranhofer's day it still meant an open fruit tart rather than the baked custard the word now suggests in Spanish and Latin American kitchens. The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is built as a professional reference: the flawns run in a numbered series, each one assuming you have already read the apricot version and know how to line the ring, so the entry here is really just the variation. The apple-marmalade base under sliced fruit seals the pastry against the juice of the fruit above and sweetens a tart that carries very little added sugar of its own. The half-and-half apple and currant glaze gives the finished top a lacquered red-gold shine.