Flantastic!

Isabel prepares the flan.

On the whole, Isabel Allende is just like any other loving mother, totally normal, if you count making flan for your kid EVERY day normal? I asked for her recipe and filmed this little movie of her preparing the flan:


Here’s my recipe for Chilean flan, my son’s favorite dessert and probably the only reason he still speaks to me.  I make it in a flan mold with a lid, in a pressure cooker, but considering that nowadays few people know what a pressure cooker is I will offer an alternative.


Nicolas’ Flan
Ingredients:
6 eggs
1 can of sweet condensed milk
4 cups of half and half
1 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla
a slice of lemon


Melt the sugar in a small saucepan at medium temperature until it turns into a honey-colored caramel. Cover the interior of the mold with the caramel.
In another saucepan stir 3 cups of half and half with condensed milk and vanilla.  Warm it.  Test it with a finger; it should feel lukewarm.
Mix eggs and the rest of half & half in a blender, briefly.  Should not get too foamy.  Stir into the milk mixture and pour immediately into the caramelized mold.  Cover with lid.  
Place mold in the pressure cooker with 2” of water and put the slice of lemon in the water to avoid darkening of the steel cooker.
Cook on the stove at high temperature until it steams, then lower the heat to medium and cook for half an hour.  
Wait until it cools completely.  Refrigerate. Turn it over to unmold.


Alternative for those unlucky ones without a pressure cooker 
and a mold that fits into it:
Place the mold in a pan with 2” of water and cook in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. 
(Good luck!)