Ricotta Cheesecake Flan

I recently posted a picture of such a flan on my Face Book page and of course now have to publish the recipe. 

Ricotta Cheesecake Flan

Make pastry of your choice and roll out to fit your preferred flan dish. I butter my dish lavishly to avoid sticking. I am sure there are nonstick flan cases out there. Carefully line your flan dish with the pastry and trim excess. If you can, make the edge of the pastry stand a little proud of the flan dish edge. Make a few holes in the bottom of the pastry. Line with foil and weight the foil down with baking beans or similar heavy inert item. I use a smaller flan dish weighted down with a thick ceramic pot. Bake at 375 Deg. for 15 minutes. Maybe a little less time if you have a good convection oven.

While your flan case is baking mix vigorously the following in a bowl. These amounts will fill a nine inch flan case.

2 Cups Ricotta

½ Cup Heavy Cream

2 Eggs

1 Egg Yolk

1/3 Cup Confectionary Sugar

Finely grated rind of one Orange

Finely grated rind of one Lemon

I add 1 or 2 Teaspoons of Vanilla Essence (Or Anise flavor, even Pernod!) but others do not. Other variations are to add candied peel, chocolate chips. There are hundreds of other ways to flavor and garnish the filling.

After the fifteen minute pre-bake remove the flan dish from the oven and allow to cool before pouring in the mixture.

If you are inclined use the excess pastry to make lattice strips. Finicky work to get the lattice straight but very cool looking.

Bake the filled case at 375 Deg. for 30-35 minutes or until the mix is set in the center. Cool on a rack. Decorate with thin strips of lemon and orange rind. I leave it in my garage fridge to get it nice and firm before attempting to remove the flan from the case. I have seen flan cases with removable bottoms. I think that’s cheating!