So I've been snogging this month's Gourmet for the last few evenings while my husband puts Mr Tumnus to bed and tonight I was looking at their recipe for Savory Summer Tarts. Yum. This is the sort of thing I would have made for a brunch pre-Tum. Nay longah!
Anyway, the recipe for the crusts instructs the reader, once the crust is made and chilled, to "arrange [12 4-inch] flan rings on 2 sheets of parchment paper."
Wha - ?
I certainly have plenty of well-edited cooking equipment, down to miniature fluted pie shells (Wedding Shower! Williams-Sonoma Registry!). But I was uncertain as to exactly what a flan ring would look like.
You see them above because I cannot figure out how to break the tyranny of Blogger's image placer. Boo hiss.
Anyway, I have not got such things.
I got to thinking about cooking and desire, because once you get started in the kitchen, you really get INTO it and benefit from some good investments. Or begging at birthdays and holidays. (Yes, I was given the Kitchen Aid Standing Mixer! I have no shame!)
But flan rings. I'm not sure that these are going on my list for begging.
I see immediately that these are probably what folks use to make elegant stacks and napoleons of things - and in that light, maybe one or two could improve my eggplant towers (another post!). But my last purchase for the kitchen was a $6 steamer so that I could make baby food. My old metal steamer finally lost its hold and disappeared somewhere in the last three moves, poor thing.
But 12 4-inch flan rings. Small as this seems, this may have to go in the category of Things to Buy When Not Baby Broke. I'd rather have a really good instant-read thermometer. Or more loaf pans. Or a second Silpat!
So really what this ends up being is a moment when, once again, Gourmet takes off ahead of me, full of recipes for people with more money, more time, fewer (or older, or indentured) children. And flan rings.
I'm off to tuck the stand mixer in for the night.
