One of my favorite dessert growing up is my mother’s flan. My mother’s version is creamy and fluffy. Her trick is to steam the flan instead of the traditional baking method. This method only takes 15 minutes to cook and the flan comes out perfect every time. This is an easy and elegant dessert for anytime of the day. Impress your guests at the next dinner party with this make ahead dessert.

This dessert is rated easy and takes 30 minutes to prepare and another hour to chill in the fridge before serving. This recipe makes approximately 5 servings.

Ingredients

6 large eggs

2 cups of whole milk

1 lime

18 tablespoons of sugar (8 for the batter and 10 for the caramel)

5 oven proof baking cups

Steamer that fits 5 baking cups

Directions

Make the egg batter:

Crack 6 eggs into a mixing bowl.

Using a whisk, slowly stir to break up the eggs. Don’t beat it hard and fast as it will add air bubbles to the batter. This changes the batter consistency.

Slowly whisk in 2 cups of whole milk.

Add 8 tablespoons of sugar, stir and set aside.

Make the caramel:

In a pan heated on medium high, add 10 tablespoons of sugar and 6 tablespoons of water. Stir continuously.

When the sugar mixture bubbles, squeeze half a lime into the caramel mixture. This will prevent the caramel from burning.

Keep stirring. Remove from the heat when the caramel turns dark brown nearing black. Be careful when making caramel because the sugar can easily burn and it is very hot.

Put 1 tablespoon of caramel in the bottom of the baking cup and distribute evenly to form a layer.

Strain the egg mixture through a sieve and distribute the batter evenly between the 5 baking cups.

Cover the baking cups with lids to prevent the steam from ruining the egg mixture. Steam the flan for 15 minutes. Don’t steam the flan beyond 15 minutes!

You can check if the flan is done when you insert a knife and it comes out clean. Remove the flan from the steamer and chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

To serve:

Run the knife along the edge of the cup. Put a plate on top and flip the plate/flan over. The flan should fall out with the caramel spilling out over the top. 

Enjoy this wonderful and easy dessert.

For more recipes, visit our EAT page or Recipe Index.

Authors: Susan Tran and Chau Hoang