Tuesday, March 25, 2008

TWD: Caramel Topped Flan

First Bite


For this week, the Tuesdays with Dorie recipe chosen by Steph of a whisk and a spoon was the Caramel Topped Flan. I've never had flan before this, and I was a little unsure if I wanted to do the challenge this week. As you can see, I went through with it in the end.

The first bite, well... Let's just say that I was not impressed. And then I sat down to write the post, and I had another small bite. Then, as I was loading the pictures, I had another one. Somewhere along the line, I realized that the vanilla creaminess and the smoky caramel was really pretty addictive. I'm not sure this would be my first thought for dessert, but it's definitely worth adding to the recipe box. Oh, and I'd love to try it with the coconut milk too.

As you can tell from the pictures, I used ramekins. Plating them was a bit of a challenge, so I had bits of flan floating in the caramel. It wouldn't be very fancy in presentation, but I'm in the not-perfect makes it taste better camp. (Oh and one of these days, I'll get a camera that can take better close ups.)

For the recipe, click here.

Don't forget to see how the other TWDers fared with their Flan!

Setting Up

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the little ramekins! It looks great!

Anonymous said...

Your caramel sauce looks great! Beautiful presentation!

noskos said...

I had the same problems with pieces of flan in my caramel, but it didn't taste any less :-)
Yours look great!

Anonymous said...

I think everyone had the floating bits. I know I did! Good work.

CB said...

Flan-tastic... floating bits and all. Great job!
Clara @ I♥food4thought

Mari said...

I tell you, flan is good stuff! Glad to hear that you changed your mind! ;-)

Melissa said...

I had the same problem with the ramekins...but yours look better than mine!

Judy said...

They look great. I chose ramekins as well.

Gretchen Noelle said...

This looks terrific. It is so true that the first bit isn't anything to write home about and then slowly it grows on you. Lovely job with the flan!

Engineer Baker said...

Ooo so pretty! I'm glad you persevered and ended up liking it!

amanda. said...

I think we used the same ramekins! How fun!

Your flan looks great and I'm glad you ended up enjoying it.

Rachel said...

Looks great. Don't you love the look of the ramekins? So purdy!

Donna said...

Glad you tried more than one bite. It does grow on you, but then again, I love custard! They look wonderful!

Marie Rayner said...

I had little floating bits too. I think everyone did. Thank goodness for a good photo editing program! I think yours looks great!

Zakia / Avenue Z Desserts said...

i had the same problem with the pieces of flan floating in my caramel. i think it comes from running the knife around the edges?

Anonymous said...

great job!!

Jhianna said...

Dianne: Thanks!

Erin: Aw, thanks!

Noskos: I didn't even mess with trying to make it pretty :D

Rebecca: I thought about fishing them out (for about 2 seconds) then decided I couldn't wait to taste it! LOL

CB: Flan-tastic! I love it!

Mevrouw: Someone said it would be a texture thing, and they were so right. That first bite, I don't even think I tasted it - just got the texture and couldn't get past it. It was the caramel aftertaste that made me go back :)

Melissa: For a minute or two, I was thinking I'd have to just spoon it out, but it jiggled out with some help. :)

Judy: I wasn't sure I could get the flan out of a large pan!

Gretchen: Yep - that first bite was odd... I'm so happy that this group makes me stretch my skills and my taste buds. :)

Engineer Baker: thanks! If nothing else, this TWD thing is teaching me to try things I didn't think I'd like!

Amanda: I didn't even know I owned ramekins (how sad is that?). I bought them years ago as cat dishes. (Please don't throw me out of the group! LOL)

Rachel: Yep! Although if I'd been baking them for guests, I would have been upset that they were at an angle in the water bath. They came out lopsided!

Cruisingkitty: I'm claiming a texture thing for that first bite! I think I'd like to try it again with vanilla bean or the coconut milk :)

Marie: Photo editing program! Doh! I should have tried that!

The Frosted Bake Shop: (Love the name, btw) Yeah, by the time I'd plated the first one it was too late. I wasn't careful when I ran the knife around the edge after they came out of the oven. Ah well, still tasty!

SmellsLikeHome: Thanks!

Jaime said...

it looks perfect to me! :) glad you got to try something new!

love your new blog design by the way