The Perfect Flan

The air was warm (always the give away of a tropical vacation) and the night was getting older.  We had just finished a wonderful meal at a restaurant hut six doors down when we sauntered slowly in the restaurant and plopped down into two chairs by the front entrance. Flan is such a common Puerto Rican dessert that it can be found on any menu, so I'm not sure what our exact criteria was, but eventually we settled in at a little place with tile floors and no walls.  We sat in our chairs, waited for our coffee (which showed up after our flan) and dug into a curious looking version of a dessert we knew.  It was flan, but with air bubbles and many of them.  Flan with air bubbles? The texture of the flan was something more akin to quiche than the soft smooth custard that we knew. But this, we were assured, was how the Puerto Rican's loved their flan.  Later on in our trip we tried a smooth, soft flan, which we loved, and on our last night we got a cheese flan, which is also very popular in Puerto Rico, but we really didn't like that one.  It was more like a thick cream cheese custard.

Firstly, you need to know flan and creme caramel are the same thing. You probably don't believe me, no one has yet.  That's alright, but go and check, so you know.  Secondly I believe the Puerto Rican's might use evaporated milk in the making of their flans, which is neither bad nor good, just different.  Puerto Ricans also incorporate a lot of air into their flans, on purpose.  So where my recipe says to mix the eggs into the cream until it is just together, they would whip the snot out of it.  You can do either.  'll try not to judge.  I think this recipe holds true to it's name, it's the perfect flan.

Baking notes:
-I made exactly 2/3s of this recipe, since I only had 4 ramekin cups, not the 6 called for.  Which made this recipe a huge pain in the butt to measure out.  But it was still very simple to throw together.  Like seriously easy.
-Three steps: steep milk, make caramel, bake custard.  It's hard to screw up.
-I thought I might have overcooked these at 38 minutes, but after they chilled they came out perfectly.

The recipe for The Perfect Flan can be found on the epicurious website.

72/569

Mocha Crunch Ice Cream Cake

This time it was ice cream cake.  The day started early, like it always does (or did, anyway), in his pack I packed away a tidy special breakfast, something different then the same old oatmeal.  Blueberry muffins and glazed bacon.  That ought to get him off on the right foot.  I drove the hour and a half to have lunch with him, I gave him his gift.  There was buckets of rain and plenty of mushy I-love-you-happy-birthdays.  We had dinner later that night with friends, at a far-to-dimly-lit place not to far from us.  We had coffee and dessert at our place afterwards and like I said, this time it was ice cream cake.

I was more than happy to make this ice cream cake.  Under the directions of the recipe I used store bought ice cream, (infinitely easier than making my own, but so much more expensive!) and what a relief that was.  I can be mother of the ice cream cakes if I can use store bought ice cream!  Of course the cake was very sweet, but there was more to it.  I loved the hint of coconut in the chocolate glaze, and how fast it melted when it was at room temperature.  I loved that the crust wasn't baked, just frozen, which made things so simple.  The entire thing was delicious, crunchy and smooth, coffee and chocolate, we were totally impressed.  My only gripe (and it's a small one) is that the glaze got grainy once it froze and frustratingly I'm not sure why.  Happily my husband loved the cake, it was a happy birthday.

Baking notes:
-I made the chocolate glaze/fudge with only 1 cup of water instead of 1.5 cups.  I think this was a perfect consistency, I can't imagine how much runnier it would have been.
-I used approximately half the amount of coffee ice cream I should have (that Haagen dazs is expensive!)
-Each layer of ice cream took around 30 minutes to freeze adequately. The layer of fudge in the middle needed an extra half an hour to get semi-solid.
-I used one package of Oreos instead of the shortbread it called for.  I didn't have enough by weight of the crushed Oreos, but I thought it was just the right amount.  I used 1/3 of the crumbs for the middle layer and 2/3 for the bottom (and just a little less butter). Perfect.
-In Canada Heath bars are the same as Skor bars.  I used four.

The recipe for Mocha Crunch Ice Cream Cake can be found on the epicurious website.

71/569