Here is my friend, Lazara’s recipe for her Classic Cuban Flan. It’s wonderful prepared as is or used as a base recipe for other flan flavors!
adapted from my friend Lazara’s recipe
1 cup sugar
1 can evaporated milk
1 can condensed milk
5 egg yolks
1 whole egg
4 oz. cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Have a baking dish you will be using to bake your flan ready. You can use ramekins, muffin pan, tart pan, whatever works for you. You will also need a larger shallow pan to set it in to create a water bath.
In a saucepan over medium high heat, add the sugar and allow it to caramelize. This will take about 5-7 minutes and avoid the temptation to stir!
Once you have a caramel, remove from the heat and place in a baking dish you will be using to bake your flan. Swirl the caramel to cover the bottom of the baking dish and place in the larger shallow pan; set aside.
In a blender, add the remaining ingredients and blend until fully combined.
Pour this mixture into your caramel coated baking dish that’s sitting in the larger shallow pan.
Carefully pour hot boiling water into the large shallow pan so that it comes up halfway up the sides of your flan baking dish. Cover the flan baking dish with foil. Place both pans into the oven and bake for 45 minutes in the preheated oven.
Remove your flan baking dish out of the water bath and cool on a wire rack. Once cooled, place in your refrigerator to chill overnight. To unmold, invert the pan onto a serving plate.
For Coconut Lime Flan: substitute the evaporated milk with coconut milk and add 1 tablespoon freshly grated lime zest in the blender with the other ingredients.
For Mango Flan: add 1/2 cup fresh mango chunks in the blender with the other ingredients.
For Guava Flan: add 1/2 cup guava paste in the blender with the other ingredients.
This looks so good! And so nostalgic. My very Southern mama used to make something that was very, very close to this. Makes me wonder where she got the recipe!
This looks amazing! I love flan and will have to try this recipe. Well done!
This looks delicious, I love flan! Thank you for posting the step by step pics, very helpful!
This is so interesting. I was at Habana Libre on Chicago Ave. on Friday night and my friend detected the tang of cream cheese in their rich and delicious flan. We asked about it, but don't think they understood what we were really asking – so your blog solved our mystery! Thanks!
i tried making this and am wondering if there is a way to know that it has cooked long enough? i tried it for 45 minutes and it never set. i tried again and tried to cook it until a toothpick came out clean – WAY overdone! any advice??