Caramel Custard Recipe / Easy Cream Caramel / Flan de Leche / How to Make a Perfect Caramel Custard / Homemade Caramel Custard / Easy Custard Pudding Recipe / Baked Caramel Custard / Mexican Flan Baked Caramel / Cream Caramel / Caramel Custard Pudding Recipe / Custard Flan / French Custard Pudding Recipe / Milk Leche / Purin (プリン) / Crème brûlée.
Caramel Custard, the best childhood treat ever!! Everybody would love its glassy shiny look and silky texture. This European dessert is a popular and quite a common dessert item in most Kerala homes. This is very similar to the Indian Telugu sweet dish called Junnu, by taste and texture. Junnu is made with the milk of the lactating cow that gave birth to calves which is collected for the first 3 to 7 days. Hmm, a very interesting note..
I am not really a dessert person. But I thought of starting my blog with a sweet dish as I have seen that ‘sweet’ is considered to be the right choice for any auspicious occasions!! I have a very old story to tell about this dish. It takes me to my childhood. I saw this dessert for the first time when my brother made this when we were in school. Our parents were not there at home and he made it and we three just finished it in minutes without even keeping a share for our dad and mom! 😉 I don’t remember how he made this dish at that time. After all these years it tastes the same. I just remember that the taste was awesome. I still get that yummy taste whenever I am served this dessert in a pool of caramel sauce!! I love it’s creamy flavor. Cooking it at our home take away the burden of buying some expensive desserts from shops.
Caramel Custard is very simple, easy to prepare and a popular dessert with a layer of caramel on top and has a good amount of calcium, protein and energy. The ingredients are easily available in your pantry. It is a light soft luscious baked dessert chilled and turned out of the mold. It is a good alternative for those who avoid drinking plain milk citing many irrelevant reasons.
It is widely popular all over the world. . With every variation in name comes a variation in the recipe in different parts of the world. The name changes according to language of each country like Crème Caramel here in Kinshasa, once a Belgian colony, Crème Caramel or Flan de Leche in French, Flan in Spanish and Caramel Custard in English, Latin and Portuguese. Créme Caramel is not the same as Crème au Caramel, which is a caramel flavored cream dessert. This dish is served with fruit topping in France and Britain, with one or two scoops of vanilla ice cream in Cuba and in some other places with coconut or rum raisin topping. People often get confused with the difference between Caramel Custard and Crème Brûlée. Caramel Custard has a soft layer of caramel on top whereas crème Brûlée is made of cream with hard caramel top.
Caramel is beige to dark brown confectionary product made by heating of sugar. It is used as a flavor in puddings and desserts, as a topping for ice cream, custards and caramel corn. Caramelization is the removal of water from sugar. The process of caramelization consists of heating sugar slowly to around 170 degree Celsius (340 degree Fahrenheit). As the sugar heats, the molecules break down and re-form in to compounds with a different color and flavor. Experienced people sometimes do not add water while melting sugar till caramelized stage, but one really needs practice or else the caramel would burn. . The recipe I feature here is something I have perfected over the period of time. I made this so many times to get a perfectly balanced caramel custard taste. I am happy with this recipe. So why not give it a try for yourself? So here it goes…
Servings: 8
Ingredients for Caramel Custard:
Sugar – ¼ cup + 3 tbsp. for caramelizing
Water – 2 tbsp.
Eggs – 3 small
Sweetened Condensed Milk – 3 tins of 78 grams each
Milk – 2 cups (½ liter)
Vanilla Essence – 2 tsp.
How to Make Cream Caramel:
Preheat the oven to 350 F/ 180 C (Gas Mark 4). Lightly grease the dessert baking mold with butter and keep it aside.
Start by making the Caramel: In a heavy bottom pan add ¼ cup of sugar and swirl the pan to help it to melt down. Turn the stove knob to medium heat. Let the caramel come to a boil and allow it to bubble up until they turn golden or dark brown syrup depending on the colour you want. Reduce the heat to medium low. Keep swirling the pan, but do not stir which results a sticky caramel. Switch off the flame and remove it from the stove. Pour the caramel in to the greased baking mold, tilt the pan, so that the caramel gets evenly coated on the base and sides of the mold and keep aside. Let it settle by cooling.
To make the Custard: In a large bowl beat the eggs with yolk with an egg beater till fluffy. Add in sweetened condensed milk and mix well with an immersion blender. To this add milk, sugar and vanilla essence one after the other and blend well until sugar is completely blended with eggs. Strain this Custard mixture through a sieve to remove undissolved egg white strands and to remove bubbles, so that we get smooth texture custard. Pour the custard mixture in to the baking mold. Cover the mold with an aluminum foil or with grease proof paper. If you want you can tie it firmly with a string.
In the meantime, keep a pan on the stove with water for boiling. Now prepare a hot water bath (Bain Marie method) – Take a bigger pan or any other oven safe tray and fill half way with steaming hot water. Now place the baking mold carefully in to the hot water tray (be very careful at this stage) and slide in to the oven. The hot water should be up to one third of the baking mold. Bake at 350 F for 45 – 50 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. If it is not done you will have to cook it for some more time. The texture of the caramel custard should be wiggly at this stage. Remove the dessert mold from the oven carefully and cool on wire rack. Let it cool for half an hour. Wrap it with a plastic sheet and refrigerate it for around two hours.
For serving: Now the un molding part- release the sides (between pudding and dessert pan edge) with a knife and place the serving plate on top of the mold and holding the custard pan carefully invert it. If you have a doubt that it may not come out of the mold easily tap the top of the mold gently after inverting and then lift the mold and allow the custard to unmold itself from the mold. Now your delicious caramel custard is ready to be served.
Serve warm or chilled. Enjoy this yummy feast..
My Recipe Notes on Caramel Pudding:
1. The colour of the caramel- the darker the colour of the caramel, the stronger the taste with a mild bunt flavor. Some people like the very dark colour and its flavour.
2. You should work quickly while pouring and swirling the caramel in to the baking mold as it hardens fast when removed from heat. You should be extra careful while cooking caramel, as melted sugar is very hot. Wear kitchen gloves or use tongs while tilting the pan.
3. Another trick to prevent recrystallization is to add a few drops, say one or two of lemon juice to the sugar right at the moment it begins to dissolve.
4. Baking time differs depending on the oven setting.
5. While baking check the water level of the hot water tray in between and make sure that the tray does not get dry. If required add more water. You may start checking anywhere from 45 minutes in to baking.
6. People who do not like eggs can use corn flour or custard powder as a substitute for egg to add thickness. It’s purely optional. You can do it by taking 2 tsp. of corn flour or custard powder and mix it well with 4 tsp. of milk and then add this mixture to the custard content in the bowl.
7. You can increase the amount of vanilla extract if your custard has an eggish smell before pouring in to the baking mold.
8. The custard should not be too sweet as it will take away the real charm of it.
9. Caramel Custard can be made in pressure cooker also.
10. Use full cream milk of the best quality to get a perfect texture.
Happy Baking.. Cheers.. Seena.
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കാരാമ്മൽ കസ്റ്റാർഡ് റെസിപ്പി.
Caramel Custard / Cream Caramel / Custard Pudding.
Description
Caramel Custard is a comforting and delicious French dessert. It is a blend of caramelized sugar sauce topped over custard made of mix of egg, milk and vanilla essence.