Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Simple Spanish Flan

By Lisa VanWilliams

It has 5 standard ingredients and the hardest part is browning the sugar. If you like Crème Brûlée, this is the same thing except it has a soft sugary top instead of a hard crunchy top. In Europe it's known as Crème caramel, and in Spanish regions its referred to as Flan. No matter what you call it, it's hard being snowed in with a plate of this in the fridge. The flan is sweet, savory, rich & delicious and it will haunt you, and you will want more.  

Caution: restraint will be required. You could also do these in individual ramekins (to make eating several less tempting). 

Ingredients:

1 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 (14 ounce) can of sweetened condensed milk
1 (12 ounce) can of evaporated milk
1 tablespoon good vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put the sugar in a small sauce pan and put the heat on med high. Keep stirring. The sugar will first turn into little balls and then it will start to melt on the bottom. Eventually all the sugar will melt to form a brown syrup. Listen to 3 or 4 songs while you stir and it goes by quickly, 12-16 minutes sounds appropriate. Turn the heat off when all the sugar balls melt and it's a nice dark color (check the color on your spoon cause it will look darker in the pan than it really is). Pour the sugar in your baking pan. A nice round and deep dish works best for this as the sugar will bubble up while it's baking. While the sugar is hot, pick up the pan and start twirling the sugar around to cover the sides and bottom..do it quickly before it thickens and cools. Put it to the side.  

Beat the 3 eggs, then add in the sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and vanilla extract and mix it until its smooth. Pour into the sugar pan and you will hear it crackle which is fine. Cover it with foil and bake it for an hour. Remove from oven and let it cool to room temp. Put in fridge to cool for an hour or two. Enjoy! 








No comments:

Post a Comment