- Today, we're making one
of my favorite desserts. It's flan. Also known as creme caramel, this easy Latin dessert has an
indulgent custard base topped with an easy but delicious caramel. If you like this flan, make sure you like and subscribe. Hey, you're watching "Preppy Kitchen," where I, John Kanell, teach you how to make
delicious homemade dishes to share with your family and friends. First off, decide what pan you're
gonna use for your flan. I'm using an eight inch round. You could use a bigger one or you could use several smaller pans. Even a loaf pan will work for this. Then we're gonna make the caramel. In to a large pan, I'm adding three quarters of a cup or 150 grams of granulated sugar. To get that wet, one quarter of a cup or 60 ML of water. You can swish this around a little bit but here's the deal. Caramel has to be left alone. You cannot mix it and stir it. So after you've added the water, we're gonna place this on heat and the only thing you're gonna do is have a pastry brush and some water to wash the sides of the pan down. That's it. Do not mix. Okay, let's put this on
medium-high heat right now. Place your sugar over medium-high heat and then brush the sides
down a with a pastry brush. You're just gonna watch to
make sure it doesn't burn. You want this to be a
beautiful golden color and it doesn't matter
if it's unevenly golden. And now as things start getting golden, you can wash the pan down if needed. You don't want it to scorch
at the edge and burn. I have like a hotspot so
I'm gonna swirl this around just a little bit. Okay. We're gonna take this off heat right now. Pour our caramel in to the pan. Be very careful as this
is quite, quite hot. It's probably about a 300 or so degrees. It's entered the hard crack stage. And if you need to, you could definitely just use a spatula to carefully get the
rest of the caramel out. This is a waste not, want not situation. Twirl the caramel around
so it gets to the edge. Now we're gonna set it aside to cool. It'll cool really
quickly into a hard candy but after the caramel bakes with the flan, it'll liquefy and be just beyond decadent. But for now, let's set it aside. I'm starting my flan with
an optional ingredient that adds a lot of creaminess and body, and that is cream cheese. I keep it here to get it to be nice and room temperature really quickly when I forgot to set it out earlier. Today we're using eight
ounces of cream cheese. Our goal is to cream this up and I just wanna show you this. This is a little dot of caramel
that fell on the counter but it's already hardened into candy. So that is probably nice and cool already. There's no need to wait around. We're gonna cream this until, you know, it's kinda broken up
and ready for some eggs. Now we're gonna crack six eggs into here and mix as we go. Flan is one of my childhood treats. My mom would make it quite often. It was like her dessert that
she really enjoyed that's easy. My dad's favorite go-to
dessert was rice pudding. I liked the flan better. All right. I have two eggs in here. I'm gonna mix this up until smooth and then continue this process until all the eggs are in there. I'm going two at a time, but you can do them one at a
time or whatever you'd like. Cream cheese adds so much flavor and really makes this
a bit more substantial. You can omit it, but if you're using the cream cheese, you might have little lumps, which are not your friend
when you're making a custard. I'm gonna show you how to get rid of those after the eggs are all in. If you're following best practices, you would crack the eggs into a separable bowl one at a time, just in case there happened
to be a bad egg in the group. I risked it. Cream this up until it's nice and smooth, everything's incorporated, and (mixer whirring)
you don't see any lumps. That looks pretty good. We have three more ingredients left. Sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and vanilla. Start off with that evaporated milk. (can plopping) Didn't want that to happen. One can of evaporated milk. In you go. Nothing happened. One can of sweetened condensed milk. This stuff is just heaven in a can. I like to add this to
my coffee in the morning for a special treat. It's really, really good. Get it all out there. I find the sweetened condensed
milk adds enough sweetness that there's no additional sugar needed but if you have a real sweet tooth, you could definitely add in a tablespoon or two of sugar to this. Lastly, we have one tablespoon, 15 ML of a nice vanilla, Ooh, one tablespoon exactly. In you go. Mix this up until it's nice and smooth. So as you can see, my caramel has hardened. It is a beautiful stained glass, amber color, really pretty, and I cannot wait to enjoy this. I'm doing one optional step, which is to strain
everything through a sieve. I just don't wanna have
any cream cheese lumps. Let's see if there were any. Pour that onto your caramel. Oh my gosh. Wait 'til you see this. Do you see this? So many hidden lumps. I'm really glad that I
strained this through. Our flan is ready to bake at 325, but we're not just gonna
toss this into the oven. That would be a disaster. You want your custard
to cook really gently with a nice, even heat. So we're gonna place this
into a large roasting dish. (kettle whistling) We're gonna pour some
boiling water into here. Although if you want, it could just be really hot water. I wanna have this covered
about halfway or an inch. This is gonna be a really nice way to provide an even heat while this cooks so your custard is silky
throughout and not hard and eggy. Okay, that's great. We're gonna carefully
put this into our oven that's been preheated to 325 Fahrenheit. It's gonna cook for about
50 minutes, maybe 45. It should be jiggling
gently when you wiggle it. In you go. My flan's has been chilling
for about two hours and when it came out of the oven, it had a juggle in the center, but right now that jiggle is totally gone. It's ready to invert. You're gonna wanna use a thin, sharp knife and run that along the edge carefully. So you don't wanna rough
the flan up too much. You're really just skirting
the edge of the pan. This will help it invert really easily. If you've been chilling it, you probably need to dip
this into some warm water. Just the bottom, because the caramel gets really
thick when it's refrigerated and you're gonna want to
have it be nice and thin so it flips out the right way. And now have your plate ready. It should be one with a lip so the caramel doesn't
fall away into nothing. Invert that onto the plate. Flip it over. Now tap the bottom. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. And it's done. (pan tapping) You can do this too. There. It just, it just made contact. Okay, now lift it up. Ah, look at that beautiful flan. That is amazing. I love the caramel on there
and it's the perfect height. We're gonna cut into this right now. I am so ready for this bite, but before I take it, if you like this recipe, check out my Latin playlist. All my favorite Latin desserts
in one playlist for you. That is a creamy, dreamy dessert
that words cannot describe. I really hope you get a
chance to make this recipe and I'll see you in the next video.
