By Vanessa Wade

THE inspiration for this dish came from a visit by a local farmer who recently delivered some fabulous honey (the bees are currently feeding on the abundant oil seed rape producing a wonderful, aromatic honey).

There is nothing that makes me think more of spring than delightful honey with Spanish oranges or tangerines – coming to the height of their season – and a beautiful set custard.

Crème caramel, or variations on it, is a fairly common dessert the world over and especially in South America. The first time I made this was in Mexico (where it is known simply as flan) with my best friend’s mother.

There we used fabulous raw cane sugar which gave the flan its own unique taste. Substituting the sugar for local honey is a nice way of putting a local stamp on a very international dish.

Using oranges (or any citrus fruit) with a custard-based dessert such as this provides acidity that will give the finished dessert lovely balance and cut the richness of the custard.

Honey crème caramel
For the caramel

200g caster sugar
60ml water
30ml local honey

Put the sugar and water into a small pan over a medium heat. Allow the sugar to dissolve and come to the boil – gently move the pan to mix but do not stir.

Continue to cook until the sugar until the liquid turns a medium to deep caramel. Remove from the heat and add the honey to stop the cooking process. Pour immediately into a flan dish and allow to cool and set at room temperature.

For the custard

500ml whole milk
500ml whipping cream
8 egg yolks
75g caster sugar
70g local honey
1 vanilla pod
1 orange, zested

Warm (do not boil) the cream, sugar and vanilla over a medium heat until the sugar dissolves then remove from the heat. Place all the other ingredients in a bowl and blend using a stick blender making an effort to avoid incorporating air into the mix. Sieve the hot cream mix into the milk mix and stick blend again.

Pour the mixture into your flan dish over the caramel.

Place the flan dish into a tray and add hot water to half way up the flan dish creating a bain marie. Wrap the whole tray in foil – shiny side down – and place in a pre-heated oven (being careful to keep your tray level so as not to get water in your crème caramel). Bake at 120°C for 1hr 10 mins. To check it is cooked place a metal skewer into the centre, it should come out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before putting in the fridge for at least four hours, preferably overnight.

To garnish

Crème fraiche
Honey
Orange crisps

To serve, turn the crème caramel out onto a plate so that the caramel is on top. It will run so ensure your plate has a lip to hold the juice. Mix some honey with the crème fraiche to and lightly whip.

To make the orange crisps place a sheet of greaseproof onto a baking tray. Very thinly slice the orange and place the slices onto the sheet. Dust with icing sugar and place them in a warm oven (around 80°C) until they dry out. Once they cool they will crisp up.

Vanessa Wade, with her husband Tom, owns and runs the Vane Arms, Thorpe Thewles, Stockton. Tel: 01740 630458, thevanearms.com