Leche Flan Recipe – Sounds a Lot Better than Saying Caramel Custard

Also known as crème caramel (the French name for you gourmet snobs) is one of my favourite desserts. Firm yet soft texture, with a creamy and sweet flavour, the richness of this dessert is almost without rival. I will be using the term flan for the rest of this article because I grew up calling it that. Now I know what you are thinking, going to a restaurant and ordering it or going to the store and just buying the President’s Choice dulce de leche (Italian name for this dish) will taste just as good. The long and short of it is no, it definitely does not. The store bought one generally dries out really quickly making the dish have a lack of softness very quickly. Restaurant produced leche flan have a tendency to not taste as good as the stuff made at home. The home made flan is always better in quality and will certainly be worth the time and effort for you to make for company or yourself (small dishes or creme brule dishes are perfect for individual servings).

The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:
9 Eggs
1 can of evaporated milk
1 can of of condensed milk (I recommend Eagle Brand)
Vanilla extract
1 cup of sugar

1. Separate the yolks from the whites and place the yolks in a mixing bowl (Save the whites for an angel cake or an egg white omelet)
2. Add the evaporated and condensed milk and mix slowly to form a custard without bubbles – A cheat is to mix quickly to form a custard and then run through a sieve and the bubbles get trapped in the sieve and you get minimal bubbles in the custard
3. Put custard aside and prepare your serving container (a large tin or small individual serving dishes) and warm a saucepan over an element on medium to high heat.
4. Add sugar to the pan to make caramel (you can add a little water but I prefer straight up sugar) – colour wise it should be a light brown/gold colour, because any darker will give the caramel a burnt taste and will result in a slightly bitter taste to the caramel
5. Coat the containers with caramel and give some time to cool and then add the custard
6. Place containers in a baking tray with water in it (a water bath) and place in an oven at 375 Celsius for an hour or until it is firm – to confirm firmness stick a fork or knife in the custard and when you pull it out, it should come out clean
7. Let it out from the oven, cool it, remove from container (turn it upside down and two taps on the top should do it), and serve (or put in fridge to cool it further and serve after dinner ;))

Well enjoy this sweet, sweet dessert. Oh and if you want a pairing for this, I would recommend the Torres Floralis Dessert Wine. Here is a review about that wine on the legendaryrenegade’s (that evil poser) website : https://legendaryrenegade.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/torres-foralis-muscat-oro/