Thursday, December 24, 2009

Pumpkin Spice Flan

Flan is a custard dessert very popular in Spain. I added a little bit of pumpkin spice to the mix for a holiday twist. The secret is what we call "baño de María" or bain-marie . Basically you fill a container with boiling water and you immerse halfway in it another container with the food you are going to cook. It works wonders melting chocolate or like in this case with custard, to prevent curdling. Some recipes call for evaporated or condensed milk but I went with a very simple (yet tasty) recipe.


Ingredients: (makes 4 flans)
* 2 eggs
* 4 egg yolks
* 2 cups of whole milk
* 1 lemon rind
* 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
* 1 teaspoon of pumpkin spice
* 6 tablespoons of white sugar
* 8 tablespoons of white sugar (to make the caramel)


Heat the oven to 350 F. Burn the sugar in a metallic flan mold. Once liquified, move the mold around, to deposit some caramel on the sides of the same. 
In a saucepan pour half of the milk with 3 tablespoons of sugar and the lemon rind. Bring it to a boil over  low heat, 25-30 minutes, stirring from time to time. In the meantime, beat the eggs and the yolks, add the other 3 tablespoons of sugar, the pumpkin spice, vanilla extract and the rest of the milk. Take the milk off the heat, remove the rind and slowly add the beaten mixture, stirring. Pour the mixture in the molds with the caramel.
Fill a deep pan with hot water, immerse the molds halfway in it and put it in the oven. Cook until the flan has set. You can check if it is cooked inside with a toothpick, it needs to come out dry. Take the flans out of the oven, cover them and let them cool off out of the fridge. Once cold, keep them in the fridge until ready to serve. Loosen the flans from the molds by running a knife around the edges and invert onto a serving plate. It can be served topped with whipped cream. 


Preparation time: about 1 hour

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