Chatter Static

Been here for years in the countryside but love Paris, Ive noticed in Parisian/Versailles Boulangeries Cheesecake "which you don't see outside of the capital and Flan tends to be grouped with the croissants, pain au raisins, pain au choc's and brioche, are Cheesecake and Flan considered a breakfast item here or just in le Capital?

Outside of Paris decent Cheesecake seems pretty hard to get hold of, what gives?

dmu

I, for one, eat Flan any time!
Unsurprisingly, no cheesecake in my neck of the woods, maybe in pâtisseries/boulangeries in cities where the clients are more discerning/worldly, and you see it as a dessert in restaurants. I wonder what they use as ingredients for the "cheese" part - a google search in French gives a lot of different alternatives....

BEVS

What's a flan? I love a bit of quiche.

dmu

It's a faux ami. It's sweet, like a custard tart, but with Maïzena (cornflour) added to make it more consistent.

Chatter Static

Flan is yummy it is made in Nature, Choc, Apple, and I have seen coconut, as D says a bit like a custard tart but bigger doesn't taste the same, obviously I prefer custard tarts but they are like rocking horse poo on this side of the channel.

Im pretty partial to the Framboisier that are wrapped in crepes none of the patisserie make them around here and the bread and butter pudding made out of old croissants and brioche.

dmu

My local bakers are very conservative and just do plain flans. If they've got unsold croissants, they fill them with yummy almond cream, to which I'm also partial.

Pica

Tweedpipe

Croissants, gross? You've obviously never had a really good one. Agreed, many today, especially from the supermarkets have rubbish pastry and are pretty tasteless. Truly there are crossants & croissants. Those from one particular artisan boulanger in the next town are to die for.
Strangely enough I was never too keen on pizzas, even when working for some time in Italy. In fact the worst ever was in a small trattoria on the right bank of Lake Garda. It was so bad I complained, and the young waitress embarrassingly admitted that many people did tend to complain about the pizzas.
Then one day just outside San Remo we stopped for lunch, and ordered a pizza. Fabulous, absolutely heavenly, so obviously there are pizzas & pizzas too. On that last occasion I made a special point of asking and was told the chef was Sicilian. Never forgotten that experience!

grannybunz

I often make Breton Far , yes I am in Provence, It is not a million kms from flan, usually contains prunes and can be eaten as a dessert or for breakfast.

Cheesecake is really an import so its another of those, if you want it make it yourself things

I can't stand pizza or pasta though we have just got a new, truly Italian pizzaria in the neighbourhood which the family declared wonderful .

Pica

How can you not like pizza? I mean proper wood fired pizza.

grannybunz

Because I can't tolerate too much wheat and also I have a very low boredom threshhold when it comes to food and ploughing through a huge lump of dough, however well made is just tedious.

Pica

Ah, so it's an intolerance- fair enough. The best pizze are paper thin, I don't like the thick based ones and neither does anyone I know- apart from Domino fans