recipe of the day - simple spanish flan

one of my friends commented that i should write the recipes of things i've cooked here...i've shared my panna cotta recipe before and now it's my spanish flan's turn...most of my dessert recipes are gotten off the trusty internet...most of my favourite malaysia dishes recipes are gotten from my dear mama (i love her food!she's such a great cook!)...okay i got this recipe online from various sites (i combined them all together)...sorry again, got no camera so no pictures...but i'll steal somewhere online!hahaha...

spanish flan recipe

ingredients:

• sugar (for caramel) - 1 cup
• evaporated milk - 1 can
• condensed milk - 1 can
• vanilla essence - 2 tablespoons (usually 1 tablespoon is sufficient but i hate the smell and taste of eggs so this is a great way of masking it!)
• eggs - 4 (can use from 4 to 6 eggs, since i stated before about my feelings towards eggs, i use the minimal amount)
• butter - a little bit to grease the pie pan
• boiling water
  

cooking material/utensils:

• whisker (u can use an electric whisker, since i have none, i use the good old fashion metal whisker...oh blender can also be used, me, too lazy to clean up my blender afterward)
• big mixing bowl
• pie pan
• larger baking pan (that is at least 1 1/2 inch deep so that it can hold water in)
  
• measuring cup
• knife
• pan
• spatula
• big plate (concave so that the caramel sauce doesn't spill)
• baking oven

preparation time: around 5 hours including chilling time

instructions:

1. make the caramel. on a medium heat, constantly stir sugar until it completely dissolves and turn golden brown. don't stir it on high heat or leave it too long as to prevent the sugar from being burnt. this usually takes around 15-25 minutes, depending on the heat.
   
2. as fast as u are able, pour the caramel on the butter-greased pie pan and spread the caramel around the side and bottom of the pan rapidly as the caramel freezes rapidly. don't worry if it's not spread evenly but try to cover the whole sides and bottom, at least. and don't worry that the caramel will harden as it will melt when baking.
3. break eggs into mixing bowl and whisk them. add vanilla essence, evaporated and condensed milk and mix them well.
4. put the custard filling into the caramel covered pie pan and put the pie pan into the larger baking dish in the oven.
5. pour in boiling water into the larger baking dish, ensuring none of the water gets into the flan mixture. ensure at least and inch of boiling water covers the pie pan. this is to prevent the caramel from burning.
6. bake flan in 176 degrees Celsius for around an hour or 1 1/2 hours.
7. test the flan by poking the knife through various locations and if none of the flan sticks on knife, the flan is done. remove flan from the hot water bath to cool on open air about 1-2 hours. flan should be jiggly in the middle.
8. after air cooling, cover the pie pan with saran wrap or aluminum foil and refrigerate flan for at least 3 hours.
9. to serve, cut the edges of the flan so that it can easily transplanted into a plate. put the large plate on top of the pie pan and flip the pie pan over rapidly to avoid spillage of the caramel sauce or the custard from being crushed or spilled. hold both pie pan and plate using both hands. percuss the bottom of the pie plate so that all flan is detached from the pie pan. leave the extra caramel (the harden layer that sticks on the bottom of the pie pan) and don't scrape it.
10. voila!