Coconut Flan

I went to this little Cuban restaurant down the road to pick up dinner the other night. We don’t eat out often, so when we do it is really a treat. I ordered a Flan for dessert. It was good, but so so small for the price. We are talking …..where did it go so fast small.  I decided to make my own flan except dairy free, so everyone in my house could enjoy. This Coconut Flan Recipe turned out too good to be true.

Every flan I have ever made has had regular milk. Making flan with coconut milk was uncharted territory for me, but you don’t know if it will work if you don’t try. When you use coconut milk in a recipe that calls for a full fat milk, do yourself a favor and by the Thai Kitchen Brand Canned Coconut milk. Why? Because it seems to have a higher fat content than the other brands. This is the only one I buy for custards, ice cream etc. ** Not a paid promo, just speaking the truth. 😉 **

On the stove you are going to want to put the 2 cans of coconut milk in a medium saucepan. You wan to reduce it by 1/3. I did this over medium heat, stirring occasionally.

In a large bowl beat 6 eggs. Just enough for them to come together.

You are also going to need your baking dish for your flan. I used a 9 inch cake pan. Since I used coconut milk, I thought I would go all coconutty and use coconut sugar too. The beauty about coconut sugar is it’s rich flavor. I mixed 1/2 cup coconut sugar with 2 tbsp water. Stir until dissolved and it makes this beautiful caramel syrup. Pour that right into your baking dish.

Now comes the trickiest part.  It really isn’t that tricky. Remove the coconut milk from the heat and stir in the remaining 1/2 cup sugar and vanilla. You are going to temper you eggs. This basically means take some of the hot milk and quickly whisk it into the eggs to avoid them from scrambling when added.

If you have never tempered eggs before do a quick google and watch a video. It is simple, but you want to know what you are doing.

Once your eggs are tempered it is easier to stir the milk in while whisking. Finally when the milk and eggs are happily residing in one bowl you can pour the mix right on top of the caramel in your baking dish.

Flan cooks in a water bath. I pre-heated my oven to 325 degrees F. I used the bottom of my roasting pan and filled it with water (not too full) and placed my baking dish right in the center. Let it cook for 50 minutes.

When it is done it will look like this. It will be set up like a pudding. Remove it from the oven and allow it to cool on the counter. Then transfer it to the fridge for atlas an hour. Preferably, 3 hours or more.

When you are ready to serve run a butter knife around the edges of your flan. Then flip it onto a serving plate. This isn’t near as scary as it sounds. I just put the plate on the dish like a lid and give it a quick flip.

The resulting caramelly custard happiness is totally worth it!

So you want to know….does this taste like coconut. Surprisingly the answer is NO. This tastes like a full fledged flan. I really didn’t detect any coconut at all while I was licking my plate enjoying it. It had the perfect consistency and a really amazing flavor. I was actually surprised at how well it turned out for being dairy free.