by Andrea and nonna Fiò
It looks like your favourite Italy Art Print, among the limited edition I’ve launched a few weeks ago, is the Crème Caramel one ( that indeed, is the print I picked for the special giveaway I’ve been working on – learn more about it here!).
Every Xmas, I cook this exact flan with my nonna and she suggested sharing her recipe with our community… Just in case you’ll want to “I’ll bring the dessert tonight” in one of the upcoming celebrations.
11 eggs (nobody said it was light 🙂 )
1 litre of fresh milk
225 gr of sugar (my nonna says “remember that every tablespoon counts as 25 gr”)
Vanilla Flavouring – to taste
The zest of 2 yellow lemons
Aluminium cake pan
First of all, remove the baking tray from the oven, turn the oven on and let it heat to 220° (static).
Wash the lemons and cut the zest very thin. Place the zest into a pan with the milk and let it boil for about 2/3 minutes, stirring gently with a spoon. Once it is done, let the milk and lemon zests cool down for a couple of hours. Then, remove the zests.
Whisk the 11 eggs adding the sugar and the milk, little by little.
Take the aluminium cake pan (my grandma uses a pan similar to the angel cake one, but lower) and put in it 3 tablespoons of sugar and 1 tablespoon of water. It is important that the pan material works with your cooking hob so that you can blend the sugar and water making the caramel by swirling the pan on the heat (without stirring the ingredients). Make sure to distribute the caramel all over the pan and even on the edges. Once it is done, let it cool down.
Once the caramel got cold, put the eggs mixed with milk and sugar into the pan.
Put about 3 inches of water into the baking tray and place the cake pan over it. Put everything in the preheated oven. After 5 minutes, turn the oven temperature down to 180°.
After about 20 minutes, check the status of the flan by inserting a knife in it: if the knife comes out wet keep the flan cooking, otherwise – if it looks clean and shiny, it means that the flan is ready. The cooking time is the tricky part of making a great Crème Caramel…Keep in mind that every minute counts, so check the status of the flan with a knife every 5 minutes. Usually, it does not have to cook for more than 25-30 minutes max.
Once it is ready, let it cool down: first outside the fridge for a couple of hours and then in the fridge for about half a day.
Take the flan out of the fridge and let it stand for about 2 hours.
Afterwards, run the point of a sharp knife around the top edge of the pan, place a big plate on top of the pan and invert. Give the pan and plate a sharp shake and carefully remove the pan.
Buon appetito 🙂
Nonna Fiò
