This flan recipe is as easy, classic, and creamy as it gets—here's how to make it the best it can, from the custard to the caramel sauce.
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00:00 Hey y'all, it's Brooke and I'm in the Delish Kitchen studios
00:02 whipping up a classic custardy dessert that we all know and love, it's flan.
00:07 It's creamy, caramelly, super silky smooth, and surprisingly simple to pull together,
00:12 even if you've never made caramel before. To make flan, you have to start with a caramel,
00:17 and to make caramel, you have to start with it in a skillet on a stove top.
00:21 This is a wet caramel, which means we're going to use sugar and water. A dry caramel uses just
00:26 sugar. We like using a wet caramel for this because they're way more foolproof and easy to cook.
00:32 The water helps the sugar not overcook and burn. We're going to start with a small skillet and
00:36 we're going to put it over a medium heat. We're going to add a cup of sugar and then a third cup
00:40 of water and let that melt basically and cook for about 10 to 15 minutes. The main thing with
00:46 caramel is don't stir it. The reason we don't want to stir the caramel is because it'll form
00:51 little sugar crystals that won't melt and make a really homogenous smooth caramel. It'll have
00:57 little chunks of sugar in it and we don't want that. I told you not to stir, but one thing you
01:01 can do is get a pastry brush, dip it in a little bit of water, and use that to control any sugar
01:07 that's jumping up on the side of the pan and brush it back down into the mixture. As you can see,
01:12 the caramel is starting to get a little bit darker in color. We're going to let it go for a little
01:16 bit longer until it gets a really nice, rich, deep amber color. We're also going to work really
01:21 quickly to get this caramel out of the skillet and into the pan. And remember, once you get that
01:26 caramel into the cake pan, you want to work really quickly to make sure it spreads across the whole
01:30 bottom of the cake pan and to cover evenly. As you can see, it's gotten to a really deep, rich color.
01:36 Kind of looks like maple syrup. So if you need something else to compare it to, that's your key.
01:40 I don't know if you guys have ever worked with sugar before, but it gets way hotter than boiling
01:45 water. So please be careful on this part when you're pouring the caramel from the skillet into
01:49 the cake pan. And your cake pan will also heat up quite a bit too. So make sure you get that
01:54 swirling part done quickly, set it down, and let it cool. There are two main types of flan,
02:00 and that's Mexican flan and Spanish style flan. Major difference is the kind of egg that you're
02:05 using. In Mexican style flan, you use both whole eggs and egg yolks, whereas in Spanish style flan,
02:10 you just use egg yolks. This recipe leans more toward the traditional Mexican style of flan
02:15 that uses eggs and egg yolks, and it also uses a little bit of vanilla extract. To make the custard
02:21 for this flan into a bowl, we're going to whisk our cream, milk, vanilla extract, and salt. And
02:28 then we're going to mix that together with a whisk until it's nice and well blended. This next part
02:33 of the custard is what makes this a true Mexican style flan. We're using both whole eggs and egg
02:39 yolks. We've got our eggs separated in this bowl. I'm going to go ahead and whisk these together
02:44 with a little bit of sugar, and then we're going to pour that milk and cream mixture in here,
02:48 and our custard will be pretty much done. Okay, so I've got my custard and the caramel all ready
02:54 to go. The best part about doing the caramel first is that it gives it a chance to set up and harden.
02:59 You guys can hear that. It's basically like a caramel candy layer. After we put it in the oven
03:06 with the custard layer, it's going to melt and turn into that caramel syrup that we all know
03:10 and love from flan. I'm going to pour this custard over our hardened caramel layer,
03:15 and then we're going to pour some hot water into the baking dish around the cake pan until it's
03:20 about halfway up the sides. Our water bath is all set up and ready to go. We're going to put this in
03:26 a 350 degree oven for 50 to 55 minutes until the center is still jiggly and just barely set.
03:33 A couple things you can do to make sure your flan comes out cleanly. Start with an offset spatula,
03:39 and you want to just sort of dislodge the custard from the edges of the pan
03:44 by going around the edge and loosening whatever bits might feel like they're stuck to the edge
03:48 of the pan. The last thing we want is to flip this whole flan out and then a bunch of chunks
03:53 of custard are stuck behind the pan. That would make me very sad. That's going to make you very
03:57 sad, so do yourself a favor and help it come out. Then, of course, we know the only way to invert
04:04 something is to take a plate, put it on the pan, and then we're going to do a flip and say a prayer.
04:12 I'm going to do a couple of safety knocks just to make sure all of that custard
04:17 is truly off of the bottom of the pan.
04:19 This is looking absolutely flan-tastic, and I can't wait to take a bite.
04:33 Mmm. Oh, my goodness. It's so silky and smooth and soft, and the best part of flan, honestly,
04:40 is all this extra caramel sauce you get, so I love spooning a couple extra teaspoons on top
04:45 of my slice before digging in. It's the peak custard, right? It's not eggy, but it's really
04:50 smooth, and it's soft, and it's silky, and it's still got a little bit of body to it, which I
04:56 like. That vanilla is really coming through, which is why I'm glad we went with the Mexican-style
05:00 flan. You might expect a caramel dessert like this to be really cloying and too sweet, but
05:05 this really hits the perfect balance because there's not too much sugar in the custard,
05:10 so a lot of the sweetness comes from that caramel that's on top, but you also get some really toasty
05:15 notes, some real richness there from the caramel. It's really nice. Make this for birthdays or for
05:20 holidays when you have a ton of family and friends coming over. It's going to look like you put in a
05:24 lot of work, but we know it's only a couple of ingredients and a little bit of TLC. For more
05:29 easy desserts like this one, keep it right here at delish.com.
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