Paris custard pie

To make the pastry, combine the flour, butter and sugar in a food processor and pulse until it forms a coarse crumb. Add the milk and egg yolk and pulse again until the dough combines into a mass. Knead the pastry very lightly to combine, then wrap in cling film and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.

For the custard, whisk together the egg yolks, whole egg and cornflour in a large heat-proof bowl. When combined, whisk in the cream.

In a medium saucepan, heat the milk, sugar and scraped vanilla seeds and bring to a simmer, watching carefully to ensure it doesn't boil over. Pour the milk mixture into the egg mixture, whisking constantly, and then immediately return the combined mixture to the saucepan. Heat over medium heat until the mixture thickens to coat the back of a spoon (about 2 minutes).

Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Chill the custard mix in the fridge, with cling film placed directly onto the custard to prevent a skin from forming.

Roll the pastry out to ½ cm thick and line a 20cm round non-stick springform cake tin (7.5cm high). Refrigerate the pastry for a further 30 minutes.

Heat your oven to 200C (180C fan-forced). Fill the pastry case with the chilled custard and use a sharp knife to trim the pastry just above the level of the custard. Bake pie for 45 minutes, until the custard shows only a slight wobble in the centre when the side of the tin is tapped firmly. Turn the oven up to its highest heat on the grill setting and grill the pie for a few minutes to create a dark brown brûlée top, watching constantly to ensure it doesn't burn too much.

Remove the pie from the oven, allow it to cool to room temperature, then refrigerate covered with cling film for at least 4 hours, or preferably overnight.