Making homemade flan always seemed too complicated, but I finally tackled it with the sous vide method. I even had some leftover batter, so I popped the rest in the oven just to see what would happen.
I used this sous vide recipe, and placed the mason jars in a hot water bath for an hour.
It was only my second time using these little mason jars, so I was a bit nervous about whether they’d break, but thankfully the finger-tip method worked. The trick is to tighten them just enough, but not too much that they crack under pressure.
While they sat in a water bath, I used this guideline for the leftover batter in the oven.
I glanced at the jars occasionally to make sure that they weren’t doing anything weird, like floating around, and thankfully they remained in place. When the sous vide timer went off, I carefully pulled them out with tongs and let them rest for a few minutes, until I could handle them without burning myself.
Soon enough, the oven-baked flan was ready too, but unfortunately it burned on top. After reading the recipe again, it turns out that I omitted one important step — the cover! I was supposed to wrap it up before popping it in the oven.
I guess my experiment wasn’t perfect, but the oven-baked flan wasn’t too bad, and sort of reminded me of Portuguese egg tarts that I had in Hong Kong.
I removed my sous vide flan from the mold by running a small spatula around the edges, placing a plate over it, and inverting the whole thing. It took a few taps until the flan slid down.
I skipped the caramel topping part because I dislike overly sweet desserts, and I tend to reduce a recipe’s sugar amount in general.
So what’s your favorite sous vide dessert? I’d love to try some of them.
Notes of Currant 