Pudim Flan - Portuguese Creme Caramel

Creme Caramel is a traditional pudding served the whole year round. In Portugal it will be hard not to find a restaurant that does not have this Pudding in it´s dessert menu.

There are hundreds of variations of this recipe as well, but this one is pretty easy as only a cup is used to measure ingredients.

It is usually baked in a special tin, but if you don´t have it use a cake tin with a hole in the middle if baking in the oven, or if using a pressure cooker use an ovenproof glass bowl and cover the top with a double layer of tin foil and a lid if the bowl has one.

Ingredients:

1cup sugar (for caramel)

1 cup of eggs (usually about 6)

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of milk

10ml grated lemon rind

25ml Port wine

Make the caramel by placing 1cup sugar in a heavy saucepan and melt over low heat until it turns golden. Pour into the pudding tin or bowl and move it around until all sides and middle area are covered.

In a bowl beat the eggs, sugar, milk, lemon rind and Port wine until sugar is dissolved. Do not overbeat.

Pour this mixture into the caramel lined tin. Place in a bain-marie containing enough hot water to reach half way up the side of the tin. Bake in the oven at 140ºC for about an hour until firm, or cook in a pressure cooker for 5 minutes, then leave inside the pressure cooker until it is cool.

If oven baked, remove from oven, let cool, then place tin in the fridge overnight.

Invert on to a platter with high sides, just before serving.

(Do not take it out of the tin before it is cool, it will break easily).
- You can substitute orange or pineapple juice for the milk and add orange liqueur instead of Port wine.

My pudding tin

The pudding in the tin , note the caramel coating

Pudding cooking in a bain-Marie

A bit of the top (previous bottom) stuck to the tin, maybe too little caramel coating the tin.