Mrs. Bentley's Best

Flan is an oven-baked caramel custard that is a very popular dessert in Spain and in Mexico.  It has a caramel coated top and sweet creamy custard base.  It is super easy to make, even if you haven’t tried making caramel before.

Creamy Sweet Flan

Ingredients:

• 1 cup white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk, 14 ounce
• 1 can evaporated milk, 12 ounce
• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

To make the custard, in a large bowl, beat the eggs.  Add the condensed milk, evaporated milk, cream cheese and vanilla.  Mix until smooth and set aside.

To make the caramel, in a medium sauce pan over medium heat, pour the sugar in the pan.  Tilt the pan to evenly spread the sugar.  Leave it alone, don’t stir it, but watch over it.  In about 3 or 4 minutes, you will see the sugar begin to liquify around the edges.  It will be turning brown.  If you must, you can tilt the pan a bit to spread the sugar around, but don’t overly fuss with it.  You will see, all of a sudden the sugar has liquified.  Ok, now you can give it little stir with a wooden spoon to ensure that all the sugar has liquified.

While you were watching the sugar liquify, you had placed a glass pie pan in the preheated oven.  Pull the plate out of the oven using oven mitts.  When the sugar has liquified, pour it immediately in the warmed glass pie pan.  Tilt the pan to allow the caramel to coat the bottom of  the pan.  It will begin to harden quickly.  Preheating the glass dish gives you a little more time to coat the pan before the caramel hardens.

Now, add the custard mixture on top of the caramel.  Cover the pan with tin foil and bake for 60 minutes.  Let cool completely, preferably overnight.  To serve, run a knife around the edge of the pie pan.  Invert onto a serving plate.  I like to use a plate that just fits my pie plate.  I invert it, then I slide the inverted flan onto a larger serving plate.  Drizzle any of the liquified caramel over the top.