Bakery InnovationFrom Lucas
Happy Friday
Friday afternoon, and we decided to make something for the weekend: a fresh fruit flan.
The build is simple enough to describe and unforgiving to execute. A chocolate sponge base, a layer of patisserie custard over it, fresh fruit arranged on top — strawberries, raspberries, blueberries — and a jelly glaze over the whole surface.
The glaze is the part people tend to read as decoration, and it is not. It is doing a job. Once fruit is cut it starts drying, dulling and weeping almost immediately, and on a counter that happens within the hour. A glaze seals the surface, holds the colour, and keeps the fruit looking the way it did when it went on. Without it you have a product that looks superb at eight in the morning and tired by eleven — and in a bakery, how something looks at the end of the day matters as much as how it looked at the start.
The technical point in this one is the sponge. The chocolate powder was replaced with Duomalt from EDME Ingredients, which is the second time we have run a cocoa replacement recently and it held up again. Replacing cocoa in a sponge asks a single ingredient to deliver colour, flavour and structure all at once, and most substitutions give something away. This one has not.
The base was released with PR100 from DUBOR UK. On a flan base that thin, a clean release is not a nicety — a tear across the bottom and the whole thing is scrap before you have even started building it.
Arranging the fruit is the enjoyable part, and the part where you can tell in about four seconds whether someone has done it before.
Have a good weekend.
“A glaze is not decoration. It is the difference between a product that looks superb at eight in the morning and one that still looks superb at four in the afternoon.” — Lucas Fussnegger
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a fresh fruit flan?
A fresh fruit flan is a sponge or pastry base topped with a custard layer and fresh fruit, finished with a glaze. It is not the same as a British fruit cake, which is a dense cake made with dried fruit.
Why is the fruit on a flan glazed?
The glaze seals the cut surfaces of the fruit against air. It stops the fruit drying, dulling and weeping, so the flan holds its appearance across a full trading day.
What is patisserie custard?
Patisserie custard, or crème pâtissière, is a thick cooked custard used as a filling in tarts, flans and pastries. It sets firm enough to support fruit without running.
Can cocoa powder be replaced in a chocolate sponge?
Yes. A malt-based cocoa replacer can deliver comparable colour and flavour while maintaining the structure of the sponge, though the recipe needs developing around it rather than a straight swap.
