Flan (and other baked custards)

I find baked custards can be divisive. People either love them or find the texture not to their liking. I grew accustomed to that texture early as my grandmother was the queen of 7-layer Jello, which was served at all the major holidays.

It had been a long time since I had made flan but I hosted a couple friends for dinner this weekend with a Mexican theme and I decided it would be the dessert.

On Thursday I made the base, infusing it with Mexican cinnamon sticks and espresso.

On Friday, I made the caramel and poured it into the individual ramekins. Next, I strained then poured the custard into the ramekins and baked them in a water bath. So much of getting these right is knowing when to pull them out of the water bath.



These chilled overnight in the fridge.



Served on Saturday with lazy canned whipped cream and raspberries.

Truly luscious. When done right I will take a custard over a cake every time.

The beauty of this recipe is that it can easily be infused with so many different flavors. I have done toasted coconut, chocolate-orange, vanilla-cardamom....

Nice! That looks great, Lynn! I had no idea you could make the custard in advance but that's really good to know.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:Nice! That looks great, Lynn! I had no idea you could make the custard in advance but that's really good to know.

=R=

SOP for flan and brûlée in the restaurant world.

Evil Ronnie wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:Nice! That looks great, Lynn! I had no idea you could make the custard in advance but that's really good to know.

=R=

SOP for flan and brûlée in the restaurant world.

And then cooked a la minute?

=R=

No. Batch cooked early in the shift.