Coconut & Vanilla

Update: Für das deutsche Rezept nach unten scrollen!

As a child I didn’t like flan. It was too slippery and wobbly for me. Today I really like it. I like Flan, Crème Caramel, Crème Brûlée. And Crème Brûlée really works well. But as I tried to cook Flan some weeks ago, I wasn’t very successful. The caramel just didn’t want to caramelize. Then it didn’t wanted to harden in the moulds. I was really disappointed. And the worst thing was, I didn’t know why! I even do not know it today. I looked up several cook books and blogs, but they weren’t a helping hand.

As I looked through the blogs, some unknown, some of my favourites, I discovered something called Flan Tart on Aran’s blog. I’ve never tried something like this, although we spend a lot of holidays in Spain. Also I read, that the tart is somehow popular in Spain. Now I know why!

I infused my Flan Tart only with vanilla beans, because I wanted to get as near as possible to the original Flan. I think it worked. Of course, you can’t expect a Flan. But a Flan formed in a tart, with a taste almost as Flan and a bit of the texture. Just no caramel. That was just the right thing for me, as I remember my caramel experiences.

The tart looks like a lot of work, but it is not. You need to make a pastry crust (choose your favourite one or use the recipe I recommend below) and then the filling, which is no magic art. I recommend to bake this tart in a small spring form. I used a 20 cm one.

Be careful in the last minutes of baking. My tart burned a bit on the surface. But luckily the burned parts could be easily peeled off (maybe you see it in the picture below, that there’s a part of the surface, that is out of harmony with the rest).