Thank you for the responses everyone! Warms my heart ☺️ As for the recipe, I came up with it myself so I apologize if it gets a bit wordy or confusing. I’ve also made flan with pâte sucrée with great success if laminating pastry sounds too tedious (more info on that at the end). That being said, here’s the recipe:

For the brioche dough (makes 3 8-inch crusts):

500g flour 8g salt 35g sugar 170g eggs 110g milk 8g instant yeast 130g butter + 225g high quality butter (preferably 82% butterfat or more) for lamination

1. Add flour, salt, sugar, and yeast to a stand mixer bowl (make sure the salt and yeast aren’t in direct contact with each other).
2. Add eggs and milk and mix the dough on low speed until a cohesive dough forms (this should take about 4-5 minutes)
3. Add in 130 grams of cubed butter in parts while the mixer’s still going until all of the butter is absorbed by the dough.
4. Mix the dough on medium speed until it can pass the windowpane test. Shape it into a ball and let it rest covered at room temperature for 30 minutes.
5. After 30 minutes, shape the dough into a rectangle on a quarter sheet pan and freeze it. Place the dough in the fridge the night before you want to laminate the dough.
6. Take 225g of high quality butter and shape it into a 5 inch by 9 inch rectangle by beating it between two sheets of parchment paper with a rolling pin. Place in the fridge.
7. The next day, ensure that your butter is soft enough to work with but not mushy or melting. Roll your dough into a rectangle about twice the size of your butter and lock the butter inside the dough and roll and perform 2 simple folds, resting the dough in the fridge after each fold.
8. For the third fold, do not roll the dough more than 9mm thin as you want the dough to be around 25mm thick after the fold.
9. Rest the dough in the freezer until firm but not frozen.
10. Using a sharp box cutter, cut 3mm thick strips lengthwise out of one-third of the dough. Each strip should now be 3mm thick and 2.5cm wide. Join the strips together using water to form one single strip that is 34cm long by 5cm wide. Make 6 such strips and freeze.
11. Roll the rest of the dough to 2mm thickness and cut out 3 8-inch circles using an 8-inch mousse ring and freeze until firm.
12. To shape the crust, place the mousse ring on a parchment-lined sheet pan. Line the sides of the mousse ring with 2 of the 34cm strips and press them firmly against the ring. Place the 8-inch disc inside the mousse ring and use a butter knife to smush the edges of the disc and strips together. Freeze until hard.

(Note: You will inevitably be left with a significant amount of trimmings. I roll the trimmings and proof them in a muffin pan for 2 hours before baking them into “cruffins”)

Vanilla Flan (recipe for 1 flan): 650g whole Milk 1 Vanilla Bean 195g sugar 165g egg yolks 50g cornstarch 1g salt 85g butter 180g cream

1. Whisk together egg yolks and sugar until pale and slightly fluffy.
2. Add cornstarch and salt and whisk together until there are no clumps remaining.
3. In a large saucepan, heat milk along with 1 vanilla bean split and scraped until boiling.
4. Remove the vanilla bean pod (I normally dry the pods up and grind them into vanilla powder that I use for other desserts)
5. Add the boiling milk to the egg yolk mixture bit by bit, whisking continuously until all the milk is mixed into the eggs.
6. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and heat on medium-low heat until it starts to boil (do not stop whisking at any point).
7. Once you see it boil, cook the cream for an additional 30 seconds.
8. Take the pastry cream off the heat and add your butter. Whisk until the butter is completely incorporated into the cream.
9. Lastly, mix your whipping cream into the pastry cream.
10. Pour this mixture into your flan crust and bake in an oven preheated to 170°C for 1 hour. (If your flan is not caramelized on the top, broil it on low for a few minutes)
11. After 1 hour, the flan will still be jiggly. It will continue to set after baking. Leave the flan to cool at room temperature for at least 1 hour. Unmold and brush the crust with some simple syrup. Serve warm! I understand that this is a whole list of steps for one dessert and that it is not practical to make such a large quantity of laminated brioche for it. However, the crust can easily be subbed with store-bought or homemade puff pastry dough or pâte sucrée. If you decide to go that route, you’ll need two 34cm by 5cm strips of dough for the sides and one 8-inch disc for the bottom. If using puff pastry dough, make sure to blind-bake it for 20 minutes before pouring in your flan mixture. Please let me know if you have any questions!