Flan is a dangerous thing to know how to make. Like cheesecake, I’ve tried to avoid the knowledge so that I don’t bow to the inevitable and live off of it with more cats that any person should have in the not too distant future. But sometimes, you require flan. In an effort to make it somewhat safer, I made it in mini muffin tins so that I’d have tiny single serving flan that I could pretend I’d only eat one of. Then I gave away half of them to the neighbors. Tiny increments of things are always good for gifts, for some reason lots of little things, as opposed to one big thing, still sets of people’s bounty alarm and they go yaaay more things. Well, blackberry season is here so here’s some blackberry flan.
Blackberry Flan
- 1 c sugar
- 1 (14oz) can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 (13oz) can evaporated milk
- 3 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla (or more if you want it more vanilla-y)
- 1 1/2 c blackberries
This recipe is based off of this one.
This recipe makes two mini muffin trays of flan.
Preheat oven to 350
Heat sugar in a sauce pan over medium heat, stirring frequently until the sugar becomes an ambery liquid. Be careful not to overheat and if the sugar starts boiling, you have. It should be a recognizable caramely color, the first time I did it, I totally burnt the sugar a little. Make sure and take it off the heat right away when it gets the right consistency. Pour about 1Tablespoon of the sugar into each mini muffin cup, no paper cups or grease, and tilt the pan once you’ve done all of them to get the sugar a little on the sides as well as the bottom of the muffin bits.
This:
Becomes this: 
Mix all the other ingredients together with a mixer, I used my hand mixer on medium for about 2 minutes, but really you just want everything to be homogenous and well mixed but not like, stiffened for super fluffy.
Pour the soon-to-be-custard over the sugary bottom in the muffin tins, I used a disher to make sure they were all the same size but about 3 Tablespoons or so each.
Put a brownie pan, or something with sides, in the oven, and fill it with warm/hot water. I used a watering can. It’s easier to put water in the thing after its in the oven because damn is water heavier than you think it is. You want the water to almost reach the top of the muffin tray.
Bake 30-45 minutes. Mine took about 40, the old “stick a toothpick in it and they’re ready if it comes out clean” bit works for basically everything.
Take the muffin tins out of the oven (Tip! Taking a brownie pan almost overflowing with now boiling water aaaand your precious custard out of the oven at once, bad idea. Get tongs or silicon pot holders and take the muffin tins out of the water and turn off the oven and wait. Take a not boiling hot yet still heavy pan full of water out of an oven is hard enough). Let them cool about 30ish minutes or until actually room temperature and then refrigerate for an hour before inverting and eating!
Tags: blackberry, flan
Heather - Minimum Wage Hedonist
