Crème Caramel with Condensed Milk

5 from 2 votes

Crème caramel is a delicious flan dessert made with five ingredients: sugar, eggs, condensed milk, vanilla extract, and milk.

Servings: people

In a saucepan, add the white sugar and water. Bring to a boil without stirring. Watch it carefully. Once it turns medium gold, pour it directly into a cake pan and swirl it around to coat the pan. Act quickly before it hardens! One tip to help with this step is to pre-heat the cake pan. This gives you a little more time to swirl the caramel around the pan.

Add the eggs, white sugar, condensed milk, whole milk, and vanilla extract in a blender. Pulse on high until combined.
Pour the liquid mixture into the caramel-lined cake pan. Tightly wrap aluminum foil on top of the cake pan, pressing the edges firmly.
Place the cake pan into a pan with high edges. Pour water until it reaches 50% up the side of the cake pan. Bake at 350 ℉ (175 ℃) for 75 minutes.
Remove the cake pan from the oven and let it refrigerate for a minimum of 4 hours. Once the flan is cold, remove the foil. Place a large flat surface on top, and flip the flan 180 degrees. The flan should easily flip onto the surface. If the flan is stuck, run a knife around the edges to loosen it.

There are two methods to make this flan recipe: oven or stovetop. I prefer the oven because the flan comes out smoother. Here is the recipe post for the stovetop flan recipe (quesillo).
There are flan pans that are quite helpful when making this recipe. They are not absolutely necessary, though, if you don't have any on hand.
The caramel hardens quickly. Heat the cake pan in the oven before swirling the caramel to give yourself more time. The caramel should coat the entire pan. This ensures that the flan won't stick when you flip it over.
Add some salt to make this a salted caramel flan.
Traditional flan uses cow's milk. If you'd like a dairy-free substitute, use coconut milk.
Store this flan recipe in the fridge for up to five days. I do not recommend freezing it.