This Coconut Flan is a Creamy and Delicious upside down custard cake with a Caramel top.
A little back story about Flan, when I was younger my Grandma would make the most delicious Flans ever, which is where I got my inspiration! Being Puerto Rican this was a must especially for special occasions. Flan is a traditional Puerto Rican dessert and comes in many different flavors. There are also 2 different bases for the flan, one being just custard and one being "flan de queso" or cheese flan; which is made with cream cheese like this recipe I'm sharing with you today. Flan is baked in a water bath for 2 reasons, to help prevent the caramel from burning and getting hard, and to give you a soft custard cake. It's quite a process from letting it bake to letting it cool, but it is so worth it when you take your first heavenly bite!
Ingredients
Flan Base:
-1 (8 oz) pkg Cream Cheese
-15 oz. can Cream of Coconut
-13.5 oz. can Coconut Milk
-14 oz. can Sweetened Condensed Milk
-5 Eggs
-1/2 teaspoon Vanilla extract
Caramel Sauce:
-1 cup granulated Sugar
-1/8 cup Water
Directions:
To get started you need to make the Caramel for the Flan which is as simple as adding the 1 cup of sugar into a saucepan over Medium heat along with the 1/8 cup of water. Let it cook for about 4 minutes until it turns into a nice caramel color, and stir it to get rid of any sugar lumps. Remove it from the heat right away so that it doesn't burn.
Next you want to add the caramel right away into your flan pan. I am using a 9.5 inch glass pie pan. Swirl it around so that it evenly covers the entire bottom of the pan. Be quick because the caramel sets right away! Set that aside while we work on the Flan base.
For this next step you can use a blender and it will be much easier to just blend all the ingredients together, but all I had was a food processor so I did this by hand. For the Flan base you need softened cream cheese which I beat with my spatula very well. I also have the Coconut flavors which are the Cream of Coconut and the Coconut Milk. Whisk these all together with the cream cheese.
Then add the vanilla extract and sweetened condensed milk and whisk again. The mixture will be liquidy.
Now beat the 5 eggs in a separate bowl, then add them to the flan mixture and whisk or blend to combine everything well.
Now grab the flan pan that we poured the Caramel sauce into; the sauce should be hard and set. Pour the flan mixture over the set caramel. If you hear the caramel crackling don't be intimidated that is normal, and it's due to the change in temperature.
*NOTE: My oven has convection settings which helps things bake a little faster than regular oven settings, so you might have to leave the flan an extra 15 minutes in the oven.
Before these next steps preheat your oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.
Now to bake the flan as I said earlier, it has to be baked in a "Baño Maria" or water bath. This is because it helps the caramel not burn and stay soft, and it helps give a soft custardy cake. So you need a deep pan that is bigger than the flan pan to be able to fit the flan pan inside of. I used a 10 inch cake pan that my 9.5 inch flan pan fit perfect inside of.
The best thing to do is to place your flan on the bigger pan, then carefully place this in the oven before adding the water for the water bath.
I use a teapot to carefully pour the water into the larger pan about halfway, being careful not to get any water into the flan mixture.
Bake the flan at 350 degrees Farenheit for 1 hour uncovered. Then for another 30 minutes covered in aluminum foil.
Once it's done baking, remove it from the oven and let it cool at room temperature for at least 45 minutes.
Now this is the hardest part...let it cool in the refrigerator for at least 2-3 hours but better yet overnight.
I let mine cool overnight, then I added the bottom part of the pan over hot water so that the caramel melts somewhat and so that the flan is easier to remove, I also ran an offset spatula around the edges to help it release when it gets flipped over.
Now grab a large plate, place that over the flan pan, and flip the flan over. Wait for it to release itself and...Now you can dig right into this beauty!
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