Born and raised in Cuernavaca, Mexico, chef Jake Replogle grew up eating flan made by his aunt. “It’s one of those desserts, a very traditional family recipe that people are used to eating at home,” he said. “We make it at Haute Taco from scratch from a family recipe I tweaked, adding half-and-half cream for richness.”
The tricks to making great flan are achieving the amber color and “getting it into the ramekins quickly,” he said. “Have everything ready to go, and if you get it right the first time, you’re lucky.”
Be sure to use a heavy-bottomed pan so that the custard caramelizes evenly. “And it’s better to pull it off the heat a little early, as it will continue to cook a little,” he said. “You’d rather have amber than a darker color, which may taste burnt.”
Makes five (6-ounce) servings
1 cup sugar (divided)
⅓ cup water
1 cup milk
1 cup half-and-half cream
1 vanilla bean, scraped
4 large eggs
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Place five (6-ounce) ramekins in a pan that will allow you to cover the ramekins three-fourths of the way up with water. Add ½ cup sugar and ⅓ cup water to heavy-bottomed saucepan. Begin to cook over medium heat.
Do not disturb initially. After all the sugar begins to boil, watch carefully so that no spot is caramelizing more. You may need to swirl the pan.
Once you have achieved an amber color, remove from heat and pour into ramekins.
In clean saucepan, mix remaining ½ cup sugar, the milk, half-and-half and vanilla bean.
Using a candy thermometer, heat liquid over medium heat to 120 degrees, about 5 minutes.
Remove from heat, cover, and set aside to allow vanilla to steep into milk, another 5 to 10 minutes.
In bowl, whisk eggs until thoroughly mixed and slowly begin to add milk mixture to eggs to temper them. Once all milk mixture has been added and mixture is thoroughly combined, pass through a chinois (cone-shaped sieve) to remove undissolved sugar. Pour into ramekins.
Pour warm water into pan holding ramekins and bake in preheated oven 50 minutes, or until custard becomes “almost” firm. (It will finish cooking in the water bath.)
Remove from oven and let cool in water bath. Remove ramekins from water bath and refrigerate until cool. To serve, run knife around outside of each flan and invert onto plate. Tap and flan will fall out.