It didn’t take long to get to a desert. What’s a good meal without a good desert? This flan is another family favorite from my beloved mother. This is also my son’s favorite. I’ll be making one this week and surprise him for his birthday.
This flan is the perfect combination of velvety creaminess with enough sweet and a very slight note of bitterness from the caramel coating. Making this flan is as simple as it gets – it has 5 ingredients. The toughest part is melting the sugar and coating the flan pan.
Yes, you will need a flan pan. As a testament to the popularity of this desert, flan pans are sold in every major grocery store in South Florida. In case you can’t find any near you, here’s a link to the Flanera Flan Mold on Amazon. One important tip: this recipe calls for cooking the flan in a pressure cooker. It’s very helpful if the flan pan has a handle on the top. Otherwise, it can be tricky extracting the hot mold from the pressure cooker.
There are many who don’t have, or prefer not to cook with, a pressure cooker. This recipe can be done by placing the mold in a bain-marie or hot-water bath in the oven. I have not tried it, but I’ve seen other recipes on the interweb that use this method.
Finally, I’ve also made this flan for a friend that can’t have any dairy. I substituted the two milk products with their coconut milk equivalents: sweetened condensed coconut milk and evaporated coconut milk.
Ingredients:
- 4 eggs
- 1 can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 can evaporated milk
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 6 tbsp. sugar with a few drops of water
Directions:
Blend all ingredients in blender. Melt sugar and water in flan pan until caramel is formed and spread on sides and bottom (CAUTION: melted sugar can cause serious burns).



Drain the blended mixture through a strainer as you fill the flan pan. Place covered flan pan in pressure cooker and fill with water until touches the bottom of the flan mold.


Cook on high until stream is released from pressure cooker. Switch to medium heat and cook for 10 minutes. Take the pressure off the heat and let stand (hot) for 10 minutes.
Afterwards, cool the pressure cooker with cold water. Once the pressure has dissipated, carefully remove the pressure regulator weight and verify the cooker is no longer pressurized. Additionally, most pressure cookers will have safety locks that will prevent you from opening while still under pressure.
Now open and remove flan pan. Refrigerate for 2 hours. When ready to serve, remove the lid and turn upside down onto a serving dish or platter. The plate needs to be slightly larger than the flan mold as it will expand when released.