Flan Parisien for my birthday

 Recently I was in Paris and, after seeing lots of pictures of Flan Parisien online, I really wanted to find a good one.  I tried 3 or 4 of them, I think, and none of them bowled me over. So, I decided to give it a try for my birthday.  Coming right on the heels of Bubby's birthday, and will lots of cake still left in the fridge, I knew I didn't want to make another cake. 

I looked at several recipes online and finally settled on this one from Cuisine Actuelle.  Most of the recipes I saw online called for both milk and heavy cream. But I wanted my flan to be a bit less rich, and I didn't want to have to buy heavy cream.  So here is the recipe I used:

1 vanilla pod

4 eggs

1 liter of milk

125 grams of sugar

85 grams of cornstarch

1. Grease an 8" springform pan and preheat the oven to 350F.

2. Scrape the seeds from inside the vanilla pod into the milk. Put the pod into the milk also, Bring almost to a boil over medium heat. Remove from the stove and remove the vanilla pod.

3. Beat the eggs, add the sugar, and whisk for 2 to 3 minutes.  

4. Slowly add the cornstarch, then slowly add about half the milk, whisking all the while. The idea is to temper the mixture but not to scramble the eggs. 

5. Put the egg mixture back into the pot and, over medium, heat, whisk continuously until a couple of bubbles form in the center and the mixture comes to a boil.  Whisk for 1 minute while the mixture thickens. 

6. Pass through a sieve to remove any hard bits and let cool.

7. Pour into a cooled, parbaked crust and bake for about 40 minutes until wobbly only in the center and a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.

The above recipe already contains some adaptations from the one on the link, and here are some further steps I took that differed.

1. I don't have an 8"inch springform pan. I improvised with a cake pan by covering the bottom and sides of the pan with overlapping strips of parchment paper that were long enough to form flaps all around the cake. I later used these long flaps to grab the parchment and lift the flan out of the cake pan. I greased the parchment very well.

2. For the crust, I used my Martha Stewart pâte sucrée crust recipe. I chose a pâte sucrée because it is more forgiving than a flaky pastry crust and I knew I would have to work it a lot with my fingers to bring it all the way up to the sides of the pan. If making again, I would use one of the many pâte sucrée crust recipes I saw online that use almond flour, because I think it would enhance the flavor.  

3. I rolled out the crust to about a 14" diameter instead of the usual 12, so that it would go all the way up the sides of the pan.  This is a deep flan!  It was a pain in the neck to transfer it and fight gravity froze the crust for about 

3. I parbaked the crust: I baked it for about 20 minutes at 375 lined with parchment paper and filled with weights, then removed the weights and the parchment, docked it all over the bottom,