Jaden’s Flan

I’ve been homeschooling my two youngest sons, Jaden and Rowan, going on our second year now. This is not a post about homeschooling but I mention it because it’s pretty cool what types of projects are considered “lessons” when you DO homeschool, and for Jaden one of his projects has been making dinner for the family. It doesn’t sound like something school related; however it’s a full on production for Jaden and offers amazing life experience with a lot of learning involved. He first will research and plan what he wants to make, creates a shopping list, helps to do the shopping as I just push the cart, and then he does pretty much all the prep work and cooking himself. The only help we offer is when he asks us for specific help and it’s usually related to cutting something up but last time he made dinner, I didn’t even need to do that! At 10 years old this kid is kicking some serious culinary butt and has made amazing dinners for us ranging from carne asada to steak with creamy mushroom sauce and most recently, an asian stir fry that started with a cucumber salad with his own asian inspired vinaigrette.

As many of you know, we don’t go to great lengths around here to make dessert and if we want a treat, we usually leave the house to get it or if we do end up making something at home it’s super simple, easy, and affordable like frozen blueberries and almond milk or now and then the occasional treat that you’ll find in my books like my Pumpkin Muffins from the Everyday Paleo Family Cookbook or on the weekend, the pancakes from Paleo Pals. My favorite types of treats to eat when we do indulge are the creamy, fatty, not too sweet kind and Jaden hit it out of the ball park with his Flan. He made it the night that he made us carne asada and fresh salsa and it was the perfect way to end the meal. (By the way, that evening it was not just for us that Jaden prepared the meal for, but for our friends as well who also have a family of 5 and this Flan makes enough to feed a small army so be aware!) Jaden looked at several flan recipes on the internet and came up with his own version after realizing that everything he found used sweetened condensed milk or tons of sugar.

This is his own recipe and it’s mind blowing good, easy, and as far as dessert goes, pretty darn nutritious!

*Note from Jaden: While making this flan, I thought “Oh boy, I sure hope this turns out as good as I intended!”. My mind never came close to thinking that this would be on my mom’s blog. I’ve got to admit, this is pretty cool. Like my mom said, I found a recipe online, and it was basically canned sweetened condensed milk, sugar, and eggs. It’s been pretty fun making dinner and setting the table all fancy, and making sure everybody wears pretty dresses and drinks with their pinky out!(Please note that I was joking about dresses and pinkies!) I do love to cook, so it’s cool to be able to share my “creations” with other people. It was pretty hard to make this flan, yet really quite fun. No matter what my mom says, her, my uncle Mark, and my dad always help me in the kitchen. So put on your dress, stretch out your pinky, and enjoy!!

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Jaden's Flan

Jaden Fragoso whips up his own take on the Mexican treat

Course Dessert

Cuisine Mexican

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour

Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Servings 12

Author Sarah Fragoso

Ingredients

• 3 cups full fat coconut milk
• 2 cups heavy cream or use 5 cups total coconut milk if you do not eat any dairy
• 8 eggs
• 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup honey for flan
• 1/4 cup honey to caramelize
• Squeeze of lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon water

Instructions

1. Serving size for this particular recipe is 12, feel free to cut ingredients in half as needed. Warning – you might have to blend half of the ingredients at a time if you do not have a GIANT blender!
2. Combine coconut milk, heavy cream, eggs, honey and vanilla into a blender and blend until all ingredients are mixed.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
4. In a small saucepan put in 1 tbsp of water, a squeeze of lemon juice and 1/4 cup of honey over low to medium heat. Stir occasionally until mixture is golden brown, remove from heat immediately (note: don’t stir too much because honey will crystallize).
5. Then take a glass baking dish (we used a 3 quart glass baking dish) and another glass baking dish that is slightly bigger. Pour the caramelized honey into the smaller baking dish and spread out with a spatula, be sure to cover the entire dish, and then place the honey basted baking dish into the larger baking dish.
6. Pour into the larger baking dish about an inch high of hot water.
7. Pour the blended flan mixture into the smaller baking dish over the caramelized honey and bake uncovered in the preheated oven for 50-60 minutes or until the middle has set into a custard like texture. Let the flan cool for at least 30 minutes in the refrigerator before serving.