Cuban · Dessert
Flan Cubano
- Intermediate
- 30 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with a sweet edge rounding the corners, a silken, spoon-slow texture, leaving a faint perfume.
Ingredients
- 200g caster sugar
- 60ml water
- 10ml lime juice
- 397g tin sweetened condensed milk
- 354ml tin evaporated milk
- 5 whole eggs
- 2 egg yolks
- 10ml vanilla extract
- 2g fine salt
The skills inside
Tempering a custardSugar stages & caramelStraining & passing through a sieveThe wobble & the skewer: testing a bake
Allergen screen
Found: dairy · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Melt the sugar with the water and lime over medium heat without stirring, swirling the pan only, until it is the colour of dark honey and smells faintly bitter, then pour it at once into a warmed 20cm mould and tilt to coat the base.
- Whisk the eggs and yolks just until the ropes of white have broken, stopping well short of foam, then whisk in the condensed milk, evaporated milk, vanilla and salt.
- Strain the custard through a fine sieve onto the set caramel and lift off any bubbles from the surface with the back of a spoon.
- Cover with foil, set in a roasting tin, pour boiling water halfway up the mould and bake at 160C (325F) until the edge is set and the middle wobbles as one piece, or the centre reads 78C (172F), 55 to 65 minutes. 65 min
- Chill at least 6 hours, run a thin knife around the rim and invert onto a lipped dish so the loosened caramel floods out with it. 360 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Sugar stages & caramel 53 recipes
- Nothing is stirred once it is boiling, and any crystals clinging to the side of the pan are brushed down rather than left to fall in.
- Judged by temperature or by a tested stage rather than by time: consecutive stages are a few degrees apart and look identical in the pan.
- Colour is read off the heat and in good light, remembering that sugar keeps darkening after the flame is out.
- Stopped decisively at the point wanted: off the heat and into the next liquid or onto a cold surface, rather than left to coast in a hot pan.
- The result is clear and smooth rather than grainy, cloudy, or seized into a solid mass.
Where it goes wrong It was stirred after coming to the boil, or a stray crystal from the side of the pan fell back in. One crystal seeds the whole pan and the syrup turns grainy within seconds, and once sugar has crystallised the only cure is more water and starting the whole thing again.
Tempering a custard 59 recipes
- The hot liquid went into the eggs a little at a time with constant whisking, and only then did everything go back to the pot.
- The heat under it stayed gentle throughout and it was never allowed to boil.
- Stirred continuously and right into the corners of the pan, where it thickens first and sets unnoticed.
- Judged by behaviour: it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon and hold a clean line when a finger is drawn through it.
- Taken off before it looks finished, and strained. Residual heat carries it the rest of the way, and a custard held on the heat until it looks right arrives past right.
Where it goes wrong The hot liquid went in too fast, or the pot went back over full heat to save time. The yolks set into threads before they could thicken smoothly, and a scrambled custard does not come back; straining hides a little of it and nothing hides the rest.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Moscato d’Asti
- Also Right
- Late-harvest Riesling
- From the Taps
- Witbier
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling elderflower
Citrus desserts need a wine sweeter than they are, with acid enough to keep up: light, frothy, and low-proof wins.
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