Flan Is The Plan

I think I’ve always been a lover of flan or any flan-type dessert: crème brûlée, panna cotta… <3 So naturally I wanted to try making it myself. Now, it’s taken me some time to actually do it but now I know that I will be doing it again and again – it’s super easy and boy the outcome is to die for!

To be fair, I almost burnt the house down the first time I made the caramel sauce for the flan, because caramel is frickin tricky. My advice is – if it doesn’t look like the caramel is turning golden in the pot, just be patient. Once it starts browning, it will be VERY quick!

All jokes aside, my flan-dismissing best friend said that this was actually a really delicious flan! But I think you should just try it for yourself… ((;

Ingredients

For the caramel sauce:

• 150 g // ¾ cup sugar
• 45 g // 3 tbsp water

For the flan:

• 100 g // ½ cup sugar
• 30 g // 2 tbsp water
• 500 ml // 2 cups heavy cream
• 250 g // 1 cup milk
• 3 large eggs
• 3 egg yolks
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 165 C // 325 F and put the baking sheet in the middle position.
   
2. To make the caramel, in a big saucepan add the sugar and water. Cover with lid and bring to a simmer. Then remove the lid and cook sugar until it begins to caramelize and gets a nice shade of golden brown. Super carefully pour the caramel into a baking dish and immediately pick up the dish to distribute the caramel evenly on the bottom and then set aside.
   
3. To make the flan, don’t wash the caramel pot! Add the remaining sugar and water and again bring to a golden brown color. Then add the cream and milk and bring to a simmer, stirring to melt the caramel.
   
4. Meanwhile, bring about 2.5 litres // 3 quarts of water to a boil – we’ll need this for baking the flan.
   
5. Now there are 2 ways to do finishing steps. If you have a blender, pour the hot mixture into the blender and turn the blender on low. While the blender is running, add eggs, yolks, salt, and vanilla.
   
6. If you don’t have a blender, in a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, yolks, salt, and vanilla. Then slowly, one ladle at a time, whisk in the hot mixture into the eggs until fully incorporated. You need to do this slowly and gradually in order not to accidentally cook the eggs.
   
7. Pour the mixture into the dish on top of the caramel.
   
8. Prepare the dish/baking sheet you will be using to bake the flan. Essentially you need a large dish to pour boiling water into and then place the flan dish in the middle. I use a slightly deeper baking sheet but if you don’t have that, find a baking dish that is larger than your flan dish. 
   
9. First put the flan dish on the deep baking sheet and put in the oven. Then pour boiling water into the bigger dish/ baking sheet about halfway up the side of the flan dish. Bake about 55 minutes or until the flan is somewhat set but still jiggly in the middle.
   
10. Cool it completely and then place in the fridge for at least 2 hours or better – overnight. To serve, loosen the sides of the flan with a knife and flip over onto a large, deep plate to accommodate for the caramel sauce.

Credit: Thanks to Sohla from BA from making my flan dreams come true!