Food experiments: Flan!

I love flan. I suppose that’s no surprise…I love custards, creme brulee, or even custard-filled donuts. They’re delicious. But flan has always seemed to me to be one of those things like cheesecake—really delicious, but something you normally eat at a restaurant because it’s too hard to make.

So, in the spirit of experimenting and adventure, I decided to try making flan this week. And, while it was definitely fussy and took a long time, it turned out on my first try! So that’s one more difficult recipe that I can honestly say has been much easier for me to pull off than a batch of brownies.

Because I was intimidated, I used Alton Brown’s recipe. I’ve generally found that his recipes are good for scared people, because he adds a lot of tips to the sides of them and because they’re written down to help you learn to cook. That and I have 3 of his cookbooks, so I usually figure I should use them! This recipe is also available on the Food Network website, with a few more of his details and recommendations.

Alton Brown’s “Flandango”

In his ingredients, he calls for the sauce to be made from caramel sauce, preserves or any other sauce you’d like to try. I experimented with caramel and apricot preserves, and I can heartily vouch for the caramel. The apricot I found to be way to overpowering for the flan itself, so I’d recommend sticking with milder flavors for the sauce. I also used caramel ice cream topping to save time. This tasted fine, but next time I want to try homemade caramel sauce to experiment with textures. The ice cream topping was pretty runny and didn’t really meld well with the flan.

You also need 8 4 oz ramekins (or the equivalent), a big roasting pan, a fine strainer, some pots, a whisk, and your life will be a lot easier if you can get ahold of a pitcher with a spout.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 1 cup half-and- half
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup sugar
• An assortment of jams and sauces for toppings (e.g., Butterscotch ice cream topping, hot fudge ice cream topping )
• 6 eggs

Directions

1. Ensure that your highest oven rack is in the middle position. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. I would do this right away and leave it to bake so that the temperature will even out—you’re going to need all the heat you can get, because when you leave the oven open long enough to pour in the water bath later, a lot of heat is going to escape.
2. Place a kettle of water on to boil—the larger your roasting pan, the bigger your kettle. This will become your water bath. (I had to fill my pan up twice—luckily the hot water heater was turned up a little higher than it probably should be, so I had quick access to very hot water!)
3. In a saucepan, combine the milk, half and half, vanilla extract and sugar. Bring to a bare simmer over medium-high heat. As soon as this is achieved, remove from the heat and set aside. This takes a long time. I was able to prepare all the other ingredients and still read a few pages of my book.
   
4. Place 1 to 2 tablespoons of the toppings in the bottom of each ramekin—it shouldn’t be very deep. Probably less deep than mine was!
   
5. Separate 3 eggs, reserving the whites and keeping the yolks for use in the flan.
6. In a mixing bowl, combine the 3 remaining whole eggs with the yolks. Whip with a whisk until the eggs are thickened and slightly lighter in color.
7. Continue whisking the eggs while you mix in about 1/4 of the milk mixture. Then whisk the egg mixture into the saucepan with the rest of the milk mix. (This keeps the eggs from cooking with the heat of the milk.)
   
8. Put the mesh strainer over a pitcher with a spout. Pour the egg mixture through the strainer to get rid of any cooked eggs or particles.
   
9. Set the custard cups in the roasting pan. Evenly distribute the egg mixture in the custard cups.
   
10. Place the roasting pan on the middle rack of your oven. Pour the water from your kettle into the roasting pan to create the water bath—it should stop just below the level of the custard (NOT the ramekins).
    
11. Cook for about 40 minutes, or until the flan wiggles slightly when the pan is shaken.
12. Take the ramekins out individually, either with tongs or (if you are more skilled with oven mitts than with tongs, as I was), with oven mitts. Leave the pan with water in the oven to cool before you throw the water out. (I don’t know why, but I figure I don’t need to find out why by wrecking something, so for once I’ll listen!)
    
13. Now this is the hardest part for me—first, leave the flan to cool to room temperature. Then, put them in the fridge to cool before eating them. (Ok, the ramekins are small enough that this only took about 2 1/2 hours, but on top of the two hours it took to make these, it was hard!)
14. Try to share. It’s hard. They’re good.