When I was growing up we lived in a ground floor flat, and the elderly lady who owned it lived above us. She was a dear old thing, a widow, and she kindly let our family use the whole of the garden; half became lawn and behind a cordon of apple and pear trees we had a large vegetable garden. We grew all we needed and that included fruit because then we would always have a desert, or pudding, after lunch. One of the fruit bushes was for gooseberries, and my mum and her sister always called the goosegogs. She would make delicious pies and crumbles, but I never remember her making them into a flan – she would used tinned mulberries or loganberries for that.
The recipe I found for gooseberry flan was a little strange; the gooseberries were not cooked prior to putting in the pastry case but instead steeped in a sugar syrup. They were drained and put into the baked pastry case, the syrup was thickened with arrowroot and then poured over the fruit… hmmm… sounds a little sour to me!
We have gooseberries growing in the garden, our little bush is full of the, but I don’t think I will be making this gooseberry flan – maybe I will follow my mum and make a crumble or pie… or maybe a fool, or maybe even gooseberry curd!
Lois Elsden 