When your mind is elsewhere occupied and you lack the time - a flan that is about as easy as breathing!


Well, looks like things aren't going well, when it comes to this blog... I have only just realized that I have about five hundred images to sift through, choose, edit and put away in folders with their acompannying recipes if I ever want to post another one here again. This recipe is the last one I had on standby, although I have been shooting and styling a lot of goodies we cooked. But my mind has been elsewhere, my work has been solely dedicated to other ventures. Not good, nope. I am now on page 66 of 245. I know I'll get there, in the end, and am quite enjoying the process so far.


See, that's why I haven't done much else these last few days. I realized I was actually having fun with the proof reading and the editing process. I'm still using the same online app, and I do my corrections based on what I find in it. But then I have to read it all through again, to make sure the changes to form I have made still allow the narrative to flow and make sense. And in that stage of the process, I find myself staring at a sentence and thinking that maybe there's a better way of writing it. New ideas pop to mind, new lines, words that sound better, and my writing feels improved by it all.


But while I'm so busy doing it - and it is a lengthy process, make no mistakes - I am not editing those pesky photos. Or I am not devoting enough attention to my blog rounds. And I am surely not working really hard at my styling and photography skills. Some of the last pictures I have taken are positively dreadful. Some of the styling, or lack of it, is downright scary. There was one particular recipe I so wanted to share, but was so pressed for time, and still I thought it would look great with a simple styling and some moody light, but in the aftermath... good lord, it is apalling.


Not this one, though. This one I happen to think came out quite well. This is what my husband wanted for his birthday dinner, a coffee caramel flan. When the flan was finally cold enough for me to shoot some pics, it was already quite dark in my living room, especially on my little work corner, but I went ahead. I had this vision in my mind and it quite panned out! Adding fairy lights meant there would be some glitter to the darkness, and we all know how I so much prefer dark mood photography. All in all, I was quite satisfied with these. I just happened to forget I had them and so I hadn't yet posted this recipe. My husband's birthday was last month, so you can see how all over the place I am, lately!!


Still, better late than never, so for this flan you need:

for the coffee caramel:
  • 100 gr sugar
  • half a cup of strong coffee
On a frying pan, over high heat, pour your sugar and add the coffee. Allow it to caramelize, then lower the heat and let it reduce untill it becomes slightly thickened. Pour into a flan tin - those that even have a lid are the best! - and swirl it around the walls so it sticks to every nook and cranny. Reserve.

For you vanilla flan:
  • 6 eggs
  • one full tin of condensed milk
  • one full tin of semi skimmed milk
  • one vanilla pod - scrape the seeds and use those, keep the pod for vanilla extract
Place all your ingredients onto a blender and whizz until you have a smooth mixture. Pour into the flan tin and cover with the lid or with foil. Place the flan tin on the bottom of a pressure cooker - we use a very old school one, none of those modern gadgets, so you can cook your flan in a bain marie on the oven! - and fill it with water until middle of the fan tin. Lock the lid on the pressure cooker and once it begins to whistle, let it cook for forty minutes. Release the pressure and unlock the tin, then let it rest inside for a few minutes so it cools slightly. Remove the tin from the pressure cooker and let it cool on a rack or overnight in the fridge. To unmould it, just dunk the flan tin into warm water so the caramel melts and then turn it over on a serving dish. That's it, easy as can be!! I'd rather fancy a slice, about now, actually...



Comments

  1. Parece uma verdadeira delícia :)
    Fiquei curiosa com o caramelo de café! Já fiquei aqui a salivar.
    Um beijinho

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. adoro caramelo de café, é mais uma redução de café na realidade, mas fica mesmo super bom, só que é super doce, por isso não abuses looool

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