Here at Big Island Bees, we are a fan of the Slow Food Movement. Even though "quick and easy" recipes are trending on Pinterest and Twitter, there's still something to be said for taking some time to create a homemade dessert. This flan takes awhile in the oven but is an easy recipe to make and will definitely impress your dinner guests.
Usually, flan is made with sugar. However, the amazing chef Hector Wong shared with us his recipe for honey flan. The flan is less sweet. Honey is 15% water, thus it contain less sugar than granulated sugar. Hector is known for his amazing desserts, especially his cheesecakes. You can find his ebooks at his website.
Please note, the following recipe calls for a casserole dish. However, you can also pour the mixture into ramekins. After making this recipe, I wish I had used ramekins. Cutting the flan and putting it onto a plate was tricky.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups of Macadamia Blossom honey
- 9 eggs
- 1 vanilla bean
- 2 cans of evaporated milk
- 1 tablespoon of vodka
Directions:
- Heat 1 cup of honey at medium-low heat in a nonstick pot. The honey will start boiling into a myriad of bubbles.
- In about 5-10 minutes, the bubbles will be fewer but bigger as the honey thickens. Pour the honey into the bottom of the casserole dish or large loaf pan. The hot honey caramel will remain liquid for several minutes, but when cooled, the it will solidify. This is unlike sugar caramel which solidifies as soon as it is poured on the cake pan.
- Create the batter. Mix 9 eggs, 2 cans of evaporated milk, 2 cans of water, 1 vanilla bean, 1 tablespoon vodka and 1 cup of honey.
- Beat batter until well incorporated. Make sure your blender is set to a very low speed to avoid adding air bubbles.
- Pour batter into pan or ramekins.
- Place pan or ramekins into a warm (not hot) water bath so they are halfway submerged and bake at 300F for 1.5 hours. Do not preheat the oven. At the end of the baking time, the flan will have a thin crust but will still wiggle when moved.
- Keep the flan in the oven, turned off, doors closed, for about 2 hours or longer until completely cool (eggs continue to set when cooling).
- Place flan in the refrigerator for 24-72 hours. The longer the flan is refrigerated, the better the caramel release.
