Cuban Flan
This silky-smooth custard from Create Cooking Challenge Second Place Winner Dennis Perez is the perfect dessert for special occasions—from birthdays to holidays. Yield: 12 slices Prep time: 20 minutes Cook time: 1 hour 30 minutes Refrigerate overnight before serving
Recipe Ingredients
- - 5 eggs (room temperature)
- - 14 oz condensed milk
- - 12 oz evaporated milk
- - 4 oz whole milk
- - 1 tsp vanilla extract
- - 1 cup white sugar
- - hot water for cooking
- Hardware
- - Large bowl
- - Whisk
- - Oven-safe metal container with a fitted, oven-safe top to cook the flan in
- - Oven safe pot to place the container the flan is in
- - Serving plate
- - Pot holders or thick kitchen towels
Recipe Instructions
- In a large bowl add the eggs, condensed milk, evaporated milk, milk, and vanilla extract. Whisk to combine and set aside at room temperature.
- In the container where the flan will be cooked, add the sugar and place on the stove top over medium low heat. We want to let the sugar caramelize, which will take a few minutes. Do not worry about stirring, simply watch it carefully, as it can go from the desired amber color to burnt very quickly.
- Once the sugar has reached an amber color, using oven mitts or towels very carefully rotate the pan in order to coat the sides with the caramel. This is extremely hot, so be careful.
- Set aside to cool for at least one hour.
- Once the caramel coated pot is cool to the touch, preheat the oven to 350F, then heat some water for the water bath (a kettle works very well for this).
- Pour the custard mix through a fine mesh sieve into the caramel covered pot, attempting not to introduce air bubbles.
- Tap the container to release any air bubbles, then cover and place into the larger oven- safe pot.
- Place the pot onto the center rack of the oven and pour water into it so that it comes up to around 75% of the height of the container with the flan.
- Cook for 1 hour 15 mins or until the flan is set, but jiggles when shaken. If it needs more time, place back into the water bath and back into the oven for an additional 10-15 minutes until the desired jiggle is achieved.
- Once cooked, remove from the oven and set aside to cool for 30 minutes to an hour. Cover and then place into the refrigerator for at least 10 hours, or overnight.
- Remove from the refrigerator, uncover, and gently tap along the sides to separate the flan - do not use any utensil to attempt to separate it.
- Place the serving dish, topside down over top of the flan container. Then, holding both the plate and the flan container, flip so that the plate is right side up.
- Gently raise the container from the dish, allowing it to naturally account for the difference in pressure, and come out of the container.
- Cut and enjoy!
Notes
- The pot to cook the flan in should be metal to allow for the maximum amount of heat. You could also use ceramic, but this will change the amount of time it takes to cook as ceramic has a longer thermal transfer rate.