The Mighty T. Mex Cooks

I haven't blogged in quite some time but I think all of you know that I am now a probationary Mexican (I may get around to telling that story one day.) working on full Latina status. My two mentors got in to a heated debate over what was the better dessert, flan or pastel de tres leches. I agreed to try them both and thought I'd make them myself because, why not? Flan got chosen first because I had everything I needed for it at home except ramekins and I needed to run to the store to get some cash back while I was out and about. After a fun night out with a friend that I had not seen in years, I decide to tackle the flan at 11:22 PM.

The recipe I chose seemed to be very simple and straight forward, sugar, eggs, milk, vanilla. Easy peasy. This was going to be a slam dunk. The first step said to brown two cups of sugar in a saucepan for 5-8 minutes for the caramel topping. See, 5-8 minutes.

Right there, in black and white.

In goes the sugar, and I stir. I wonder if I have time to watch a movie when I'm done. And I stir the beautiful, white sugar.

Sugar

As that is heating, I go ahead and prepare the rest of the sugar, eggs and vanilla so that everything can be assembled efficiently. And I stir the sugar. Ten minutes later, this is what I have....

I swear, it's not the same picture

Hmm, is the eye on? Yep. Is it hot? Yep. Crap. Let's stir some more. Half an hour (and 6 pictures) later, still the same thing. It is now midnight. My boiled milk has cooled, my eggs and sugar have collapsed in to a gross mess of yuck and I still have nothing but lily white sugar. You know what would make the sugar caramelize faster? Margaritas! What an excellent idea...My Drunk Kitchen, Alabama Edition. I don't even take responsibility for this decision, I blame James Marsters. He was staring at me the whole time, using subliminal messages to make me want a margarita.

Spike, Jose and Bethany, a winning combination

After hanging out with Spike and Jose, taking a picture of the sugar every two minutes seemed like a stellar plan, judging by the photos I uploaded. I will spare you the riveting sight of an entire album of two cups of sugar in my saucepan. After 73 minutes, achievement caramel was unlocked. There was much rejoicing in the kitchen, but careful rejoicing because melted sugar is hot!

Rejoice, dammit.

The bottom of the ramekins were coated with the molten sugar, in went the rest of the goop.

Goop

Somehow I even managed to correctly prepare a water bath to bake the flan (which was now flan de cafe since I added coffee to the milk while stirring the sugar.) without making a mess. By now it 12:45 and I know I will fall asleep while the flan is baking. My friend Fernando says flan is to die for but I don't think he means it literally so I set my alarm to wake me up 40 minutes later. Fast forward 40 minutes later, and my alarm goes off. Have I mentioned my alarm is the intro to Slayer's Raining Blood? Guaranteed to wake you up but still stops my heart for a half second every time.

Rise and shine, beautiful.

I run to the kitchen, still mostly asleep and not totally convinced Satan is not chasing me...Did I succeed? Will I be one step closer to taking the training wheels off my black eyeliner? BINGO! Flanny goodness has been achieved. The flan was a perfect creamy color, the jiggly factor was somewhere between cheesecake and jello, the aroma was heavenly caramel coffee. By Jorge, I think I did it. However, I had to wait until the next day to taste the fruits of my efforts to give the flan time to chill and set.

Just chillin'

The flan was easier to dislodge than I thought it would be. It plopped right down on the plate and retained its shape. I was very disappointed when I saw how much of the caramel remained in the ramekin. Seriously? I stirred sugar for 73 minutes for 90% of it to be trashed? Not cool at all.

Flan.

Now for the moment of truth. Would I find this to be the slice of heaven I was promised? Would it feel like a cold loogie as I feared?

Loogie. You guessed loogie, right?

Overall, this was much too sweet and the texture was as disgusting as I feared it would be. My cooking fiend Denise has assured me she has a recipe with a much improved texture and I am willing to try it eventually.

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