Orange Flan / Orange Crème caramel

Flan or Crème caramel is an easy to make and a convenient make-ahead dessert and perfect for get-together. It can be made in little serving bowls or in a cake pan according to the personal desire. I had been wanting to make Flan aka Crème caramel for a long time ever since I saw it in few blogs. Many recipes used condensed milk and/or heavy cream but I wanted to keep it simple. So I made with just regular milk and eggs and flavored it with orange zest and juice. It tasted just out of the world.

Ingredients:

Adapted from here
Makes 3 - 7 oz ramekins, can be doubled as needed
For the soft caramel:
Sugar - 1/3 cup
Water - 40 ml
For the custard:
Milk – 1 1/4 cup
Sugar - 1/4 cup
Eggs – 2
Egg yolks – 1
Vanilla essence – 3/4 tsp
Orange zest -  from 1 orange
Orange juice – from 1 orange – approx 1/2 cup

Method:

For the Caramel:

Add sugar and water to a saucepan and cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. When it starts to brown, swirl the saucepan around. Do not use a spoon to stir, because swirling ensures that the sugar becomes brown evenly. When it reaches a honey brown color, remove from heat and pour directly into the ramekins. Swirl each mold to coat the caramel evenly at the bottom.

For the Custard:

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Heat the milk until it is heated through but not boiling. Mix the eggs, egg yolk and sugar until pale and light with a whisk or hand mixer. Add the vanilla essence. Now add the milk to the eggs slowly in a single stream and stirring continuously while adding the milk. The milk should not be poured at once since the heat from the milk would cook the eggs. Add in the orange juice and zest and mix well.

Pour the milk-egg mixture into the caramel coated ramekins. Place the prepared ramekins in a cake pan and fill the pan halfway through the ramekins with boiling water. Bake in the oven for 5 minutes and then reduce the temperature to 325 F. Bake for another 30-40 minutes. A toothpick inserted should come out clean. Remove the pan and cool the ramekins until the water cools. Chill the ramekins in the refrigerator until the time of serving. While serving, un-mould the bowls with a knife and invert it over a bowl or a plate. Serve chilled with fruits if desired.

Sending it to Veggie/Fruit of the Month - Orange event by Savitha and Priya and to A.W.E.D. Mexican event by DK and Smita. And finally to our event Serve It-Chilled happening at Denny's Oh Taste N See.

Sending this to Srivalli's Kid's Delight hosted by Nupur of UK-Rasoi, for the month of April 2012.