Vanilla Orange Flan

We were at a Mexican grill-type restaurant on Saturday night when my children spotted flan.  I, of course, said that I could make flan and that we didn't need to buy it.  Being the wonderful, excellent, amazing, talented, amiable, mother that I am, I whipped up some flan for them on Monday!  By the way, these are all words they have used to describe me...my kids are laughing now! 

At Jenny Matlock's party, Alphabe-Thursday, the letter of the week is "V" for Vanilla Orange Flan.  I don't think my mother ever made a flan, but she made baked custard on many occasions.  Flan is very similar to baked custard.  Don't be intimidated by flan, it is easy to make and hard to make a mistake with.  I made my flan in ramekins just because I love to eat things in ramekins.  This is a recipe that I came up with that was inspired by several other recipes.

Vanilla Orange Flan Recipe:
3/4 cup sugar, divided
1-1/2 cups milk.  I used whole, but it would be fine to use 1% or 2% milk.
Zest from 1 orange
3 large eggs
14 ounce can of non-fat sweetened condensed milk.  You could use regular too. 
Pinch of salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract.  Do not use imitation vanilla.

Recipe for Vanilla Orange Flan

Butter the sides and the bottoms of 6 -7 (four-ounce) ramekins.  In a small sauce pan melt 1/2 cup sugar over medium heat.  When sugar is dissolved and has turned a caramel color, take off heat.  Divide the caramel between the ramekins.  You need to do this quickly so that the sugar doesn't harden before you put it in the ramekins.

In a medium sauce pan put zest of orange, 1-1/2 cups milk, and 1/4 cup sugar (if you would like it less sweet skip the sugar here) and heat until mixture almost boils.  Take off heat and let mixture sit until cool.  When mixture cools, pour through a fine sieve.  Add eggs, sweetened condensed milk, salt and vanilla.  Wisk ingredients until smooth.  Pour mixture through a fine sieve. 

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees.  Place prepared ramekins in a roasting pan or 13 x 9 pan(s).  Put 1/2 cup of mixture into each ramekin.  Pour water in the roasting pan until water reaches halfway up the sides of the ramekins.  Avoid sloshing water in the ramekins.  To avoid sloshing, put your roasting pan on the rack of your oven and then pour water.  If you are using ramekins bake for 50 to 60 minutes.  Cook until just set.  The flan will tremble just a little bit.  If you are using a souffle or flan dish, you will need to bake the flan as long as 75 minutes.  After baking, remove ramekins from roasting pan and cool on a wire rack.

Ramekins cooling on the racks.

 Chill flan, covered, for at least four hours and up to one day.  When properly chilled, run a thin knife around the edge of the dish and invert onto dessert plate allowing the caramel sauce to dribble down the sides of flan.  In a pinch, you could put the flan in the freezer to cool.  It won't be as good, but it would work. 

















I am posting this with Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday.