THIS IS FLAN-TASTIC

Traditional Spanish Flan

Flan, a mouthwatering dish, is a very popular dessert that is most common in Central and Southern America. It is a baked dish with a sponge base that is custard and a sweet topping made of caramelized sugar. The fillings of Flan vary from either a savory citrus filling to a scrumptiously sweet filling.

Flan has been come to North America as a tasty street food and household dessert from Central and South America, in particular Mexico. Oddly enough, however, the origin of Flan starts all the way at the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Let’s take a journey to Ancient Rome.

Rome was known for being one of the first nations to have domesticated chickens. This lead to a surplus of chickens. With a surplus of chickens comes a surplus of eggs. They learned that these eggs could be used to make a delicious and savory custard. This dish began to spread throughout Europe where it coined the term Flan from the French word flaon which means flat cake.

As it began traveling throughout Europe, the dessert arrived to Southern Spain where it would enhanced to the delicious form we know it as today. The Spaniards introduced new combinations of flavors to Flan by adding zesty citrus and almond flavors to the basic custard flavor. The Spaniards were also the ones that began adding a caramelized sugar coating which ended up becoming a signature characteristic to the ever so popular Flan.

Recipe:

Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Yield: 6-8 servings

Ingredients:

½ Cup Sugar

3 Eggs

½ Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Salt

½ Lime (Zest)

1 Can of Condensed Milk (12 oz/ 340 g)

1 Can of Evaporated Milk (14 oz/ 397 g)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Take your ½ Cup of Sugar and place it in a pot on the stove at Medium-Low heat. Continuously stir the sugar until it is completely melted. You'll know it is completely melted when it is a brown liquid. Pour the melted sugar into a bowl and allow to cool.

3. In a separate bowl, take one of your eggs and only use the egg yolk. Next, take your other 2 eggs and crack and mix them with the eggs yolk. Stir the eggs together.

4. Add ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract to your egg mixture.

5. Add a pinch of salt to the vanilla and egg mixture.

6. Zest ½ lime and add to your mixture.

7. Add 1 Can Condensed Milk (14 oz./ 397g) to the mixture

8. Add 1 Can Evaporated Milk (12 oz./ 340g) to the mixture and now stir everything in the mixture together.

9. Pour your mixture in the bowl of your melted sugar and cover this with aluminum foil.

10. Bake in preheated oven for 60 minutes. Once done allow to cool completely.

11. Once cooled place in a pan of boiling water to loosen the edges. Then take a knife and continue loosen the edges.

12. Take a plate that can catch the falling sugar and flip the flan onto it ready to serve.

13. Enjoy!