Julia Child & Chocolate Mousse

Last night as I was sorting through my email I opened up a news letter from Saveur about recipes from movies. I, of course, was instantly interested, mostly because I wanted to find out how to make ratatouille(a dish that wins over a harsh critic?? It must be good!). But along with ratatouille I found a recipe for Julia Child’s chocolate mousse, and immediately dug out my recipe book and scrawled it down. Of course I wanted to try it out. And so I did, and i turned out awesome(although a little denser than I thought).

I ended up with a whole brownie tray sized amount of the mousse! Wayyy to much for my health conscious family(funny how a girl who likes sitting about making desserts ends up with one) so i ended up giving half of it to neighbors.

But it was fairly easy to make, and apparently you can make it entirely by hand(my scrawny arm muscles and I tried. Frankly it did not work out.)

Go here for the recipe: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2008/05/perfect-chocola/

I followed the whole thing word by word, so I see no point in restating the whole entire thing. Just one small thing, if your going to do it by hand, be prepared for sore arms and make sure you set out some time because it’ll take a while…

Mmmm, it’s so good!

~D.D.

Chocolate & Marshmallows & Graham Crackers

I love s’mores.

They remind me of golden afternoons with my sister laughing and smearing chocolate on each other’s faces while making them.

They remind me of  ebony nights that were lit up only by the scarlet glow of the campfire which my friends and I gathered around.

They’re a beautiful mix of chocolate, marshmallow, and graham cracker.

I suppose this post is for my love of s’mores…just some pictures…

In the case that you don’t know how to make them …

1. smear some graham cracker halves with chocolate.

2. Grab a marshmallow, and skewer it on the very end of the skewer, and roast it over a open flame(camp fire, stove top…)

3. After the marshmallow is golden brown or just really burnt looking, put the marshmallow on the chocolate smeared graham cracker and smush it down with the other half.

And there you have your smore.

Ahh, such beautiful over sweetness….

~D.D.

Chocolate & Strawberries

The past few days have been sleepy. Utterly and completely sleepy. I’ve been sitting around practically doing nothing, except this summer reading project I have from school. So when I found a box of strawberries and a bar of dark chocolate in the fridge I immediately thought, I have nothing to do, so why not chocolate strawberries??

Ahhh, I absolutely love these things…The flavor of the strawberries and chocolate are a perfect combo… But, strawberries and chocolate aren’t the only ingredients. If you just melt chocolate, and dip a strawberry in it, and let that harden, you’ll end up with a very….rough looking chocolate coating. I wish I had a picture to show you what it looks like, but some one already ate my rough-chocolate-strawberry-example. So, if you don’t want that rough chocolate  coating, you need butter. Yes, butter, and just a little bit. It really smooths out the chocolate so nicely!

You can use any chocolate types but I personally think dark chocolate, and semi sweet chocolate taste the best(better contrast with the sweetness of the strawberry!)

And a little tip for strawberries: The darker and the squishier, the sweeter(at least most of the time).

So basically, you simply melt a bunch of chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, and then you add in some butter, then you take the strawberry and dip it in, then(this is if you don’t mind a flat bottom strawberry(a picture is below) cover a plate in plastic wrap and place the strawberry on that and let it cool for a while in the refrigerator.

A flat bottomed strawberry:

However if you have strong distaste for this kind of chocolate strawberry like me, you can either:

a. grab some tooth picks stick the strawberry on that dip it, and then stick the other end of the tooth pick into something that will elevate the strawberry

b. after you dip the strawberry you can attempt to flip it over on to its top and hope it balances.

After I made these and put them in the refrigerator i think some of them may have dissapeared…

anyway, i hope you enjoy your own :)

~D.D.

Photogenic Apples & A Crumbly

Nowadays, I’m spending a lot of time going through a variety of food blogs and wondering the same question over and over as i read each post: How the heck are they writing so much??? And it’s not like they’re taking up most of the post with the recipe for the food they happen to be talking about, instead there’s one little link at the very bottom. My posts are approximately a small paragraph with a bunch of pictures and a recipes which is pretty much seventy five percent of the post. The other twenty-five percent are divided between pictures(fifteen percent or so) and my own talking(five percent).

And also, I have learned that apples are excellent picture subjects!

Yeah, it’s kind of random, but I was making apple crumbly(as you see in the post), and taking random pictures for this post so…

But now to apple crumbly: I suppose this is a bit different from my other posts, mostly because it’s somewhat healthier. I think a cup of this should be only about four hundred calories…which I think is not that bad…for a desert at least…

What do you think is a good amount of calories for a desert?

So here we go with the recipe:

Apple Crumbly

(adapted from original recipe(which’s source I can’t recall))

• 1 and 1/3 a cup of flour
• 1/2 a teaspoon of salt
• 6 tablespoons & 1 tablespoon+1 tspn of light brown sugar(keep these separated
• 3 tablespoons of butter unsalted
• 2 & 1/2tablespoons of toasted almonds sliced or slivered(I usually buy these, because trying to cut almonds annoys me)
• 2 granny smith apples
• 2 golden delicious apples
• 2 tablespoons of raisins
• 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 6 cloves, ground

Okay, so now roast the almonds, and put them to the side.

Then, take the raisins and put them in steaming hot water and let them soak there, and putting that to the side too.

Preheat your oven to 350.

Now take the six tablespoons of sugar & the salt & flour and mix them together, then chop the butter(all of it) up into chunks the size of your finger tips and add that to the mixture of sugar, salt & flour. Now using your fingers sort of blending it into the mixture until the whole thing looks bread crummy-ish.

Then simply mix in the almonds. It should look like that down there.

And if it does, great! You’ve finished with the crumbly part, now for the apples…

Take your four apples(remember two granny smith, two golden delicious), and peel and cut them into chunks approximately the size of your thumbs finger tip.

This was a pain since I really suck at peeling apples :( No, i don’t go slice up my fingers trying to peel these, but I’m just really slow. Really, really slow.

My work station:

Now take the apples and add them in a different large bowl and take the raisins, drain them, and add them in to the bowl apples along with the sugar, cinnamon, and cloves. Now mix that up( I just use my hand and toss them around). Keep mixing until theres a bit of juice spread around in the bowl. Then grab a pan(I use and reccomend a 9×11 1/2 one) or you can use individual ramekins(I usually use ones the size of my palm), and spray the insides with non stick cooking spray, and pour the apples into the pan spreading it out evenly. Then on top of that spread the crumble part evenly and put that in the oven. Take it out when the top is a golden brown color…well the color kinda got whitened out here…

And now simply scoop and serve!

Hope you enjoy!

~D.D.

My First Daring Bakers & Failiure

This years daring baker challenge was a swiss roll ice cream cake(click on the link to see what it is), and I’ll have to say, mine did not come out all too well…Firstly I nearly forgot to do the challenge. It’s almost a go figure sort of thing, because I seem to forget so much(like that time I forgot to put the eggs in my sugar cookies…lets just say the that it didn’t turn out all too good…). Secondly, it’s blazing hot(at a high of ninety degrees :( ), and the last thing I’d want to attempt to make is an ice cream cake. The ice cream didn’t for even two seconds outside of the freezer, and so when I tried to add it to the cake it melted through the holes in between the swiss rolls,  and coated the top of the whole cake & possibly was absorbed by the cake(hence why it looks really strange and wrinkly as you see…If you want to see really pretty and normal looking swiss roll ice cream cakes i suggest you google it since mine is kinda ugly…)

And then the bottom layer of ice cream took ten seconds to melt into liquid, as you see up there in the very first picture. But even with the strange, messed up appearance, it actually tasted a lot better than I actually thought it would taste like.

Since we daring bakers were allowed to modify and flavors and tastes, I changed some the original vanilla and chocolate flavors of the ice cream to coffee and dark chocolate. I also added a pinch(literally) of instant coffee to the cream of the swiss roll. But as you can see it didn’t change the appearance at all.

Okay so here we go:

Swiss Rolls Recipe

Adapted from Sunita Bhuyan(of Sunita’s World)’s origninal recipe

*You will definitely need a hand mixer for this

• 6 eggs( medium sized)
• 1 cup of caster sugar(like regular sugar, but finer, although not as fine as confectioners, you can buy it at a store(it’s also called superfine sugar, or fruit sugar, or quick dissolving sugar)
• 6 Tablespoons of regular flour sifted together with 5 tablespoons of natural unsweetened dark cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons of boiling water

Firstly preheat your oven to 400 degrees, and grease and line a pan or two (11×9 or atleast something close) with grease proof baking paper.

Okay, so now we start out with the caster sugar and the eggs. Blend those together using the mixer, until they turn a white color. It seems sorta impossible, but yes it does happen, even if it takes a bit, so just be patient and pay attention to color and foaminess of the mixture. It should be really thick and foamy. Thick enough to trail on the surface and remain there for a couple of seconds. Then take mix-of-flour+cocoa and fold that into the mixture little by little(gently, you don’t want to squish the foaminess). And now fold in the boiling water. Then put half of the mixture in one pan, and if you have a second fill it with the other half, and stick the pan(s) in the oven.

And now while that stuff bakes, lets make the cream.

For the filling:

• 2 cups of whipping cream(NOT heavy whipping cream, since the fat content is higher, and it tends to be slightly greasier)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 5 tablespoons of caster sugar

Add the all the ingredients to a bowl, and whip it together using the hand blender, until it’s thick and frothy, and like whipped cream.

Now back to the cake-y thing. Cut off the crisp edges, and place a towel upon it , and keeping the towel on it, roll it up, and place it on a rack to let it cool. Do this for both of the cake things, and when it is cooled,  unroll the cakes, and spread the cream thickly on the cakes keeping away from the edges(about a half an inch or so). And now roll up both of the cakes, and you can keep them in the fridge for as long as you want(although the shape gets more oval than round) or just cut it up right now.

So now after you cut it up, get a bowl of some sort(i used two cake pans and put half in one and the other half in another) to put the whole desert into and now line that with cling wrap and line all the swiss rolls around the inside of the bowl.

Nowww, Ice cream #1: Dark Chocolate Ice Cream

• 2 cups of whipping cream(once again, not heavy whipping cream)
• 1 cup of caster sugar
• 3 tablespoons of natural unsweetened dark cocoa powder

Okay, so now start with the sugar and the cocoa powder and using a mortar and pestle(like me :D) or food processor grind that together. Now pour that and the cream into a sauce pan(stir it using a whisk) and heat it until little bubbles form on the sides of the pan and then let the mixture cool. Then put it in a freezer safe container and stick it in the freezer for about a half an hour or so. The edges of the mixture should start to freeze,  and stir it up vigorously and leave the pan in there again and check on it a bit later, and then stir it up again. Continue repeating this process until it’s fully frozen and ice cream like.

Ice Cream #2

• 2 cups of whipping cream
• 1 cup of caster sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of instant coffee

This is pretty much the same as the chocolate ice cream. Grind together the coffee powder and the sugar and then add it into a sauce pan with the cream and heat it up until there are little bubbles around the edges, and then let it cool then pour it into a freezable pan and let it sit for a half an hour or so, and stir it up and continue doing so until solid.

Now the hot fudge sauce(this goes in between the two ice creams)

You need…

• 1 cup of caster sugar
• 3 tablespoons of natural unsweetened dark cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons of cornstarch
• 1 1/2 cups of water
• 1 tablespoon of butter
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Now add the caster sugar, the dark cocoa powder, the cornstarch and the water into a sauce pan and stir it up over heat using a whisk. This may take a bit, but eventually it will become thicker and gloppier, and fudge saucy. And thats when you take it off the stove and add in the vanilla extract and the butter.

Now putting it allll together.

You already have the bowl lined with the plastic wrap and swiss rolls, so now we use the the first layer of ice cream(i used coffee).

Make sure it’s softened and sorta “pour” it into the swiss-roll-lined-bowl and stick that in the freezer so that layer can freeze(approx. an hour). Now pour in the fudge sauce, and put it back in the freezer so that can firm up(approx. an hour). And then after that hour take it out again, and add the chocolate(softened) ice cream layer and let that freeze for an hour also, and then tada! You’re done :)

Well, you gotta flip the cake over too, but you can do that all by yourself :)

Note: If the cake decides to be stubborn and not come out, wipe the outside of the bowl with a hot wet towel, or just tap on it.

~D.D.

Chocolaty & Frozen

As I told you in my previous post it’s been crazily hot out, and so I’ve been living off of ice tea. And now for some reason I have a sorta craving for cold and chocolaty. That and my sister wants a chocolate milk shake(although to her, any thing cold and chocolaty happens to qualify as a milkshake:D).

And so I made hot chocolate, poured it into my blender full of ice and it came out a hot chocolate slushy thingy. Quite delicious really :D

Annnnddd, making these hot chocolate slushy things also gave me an excuse to use the super tall glasses that have been hanging out at the top of my cabinets gathering dust for the past few years :). I really love using fancy glasses to put stuff in. To me, you can stick anything in a martini glass and make it look cool. Well, anything that doesn’t have true form(things that do have a true form:cake, flan, tiramisu|things without a true form: pudding, slushy things, ice cream| get the idea?). 

These tall glasses work nicely for certain things too, although I recommend sticking with drinks for these ’cause it’s not too fun spending ten minutes to get that last spoon of pudding or ice cream in there.

And of course, I also think everything in a glass looks fancy with a bit of something on the rim(i.e. a lemon, a twirly lemon peel thing, a fancy little umbrella thing(I was obsessed with those as a kid), an orange even, etc.)

Ahh the joy of things frozen and chocolaty.

By the way, if you were curious about the hot chocolate recipe i use:

some milk(any type is good)

some sugar

some semi sweet chocolate

some half and half

And I pretty much just melt the chocolate into the milk and add a teaspoon of sugar and a bit of evaporated milk, stir it up, taste it, if it tastes bitter i add a teaspoon more, if it’s not creamy enough I add in half and half, and if it’s not chocolaty enough….you know

As for the frozen bit:

Cool the hot chocolate!

So now look at how much hot chocolate you’ve made. You want triple the amount of ice(you don’t have to be exact). So now take the ice you have, and put it into a blender, and pour in the hot chocolate, and leave it for a bit(you know how when you lick a pole outside when it’s deep winter, and your tongue gets stuck? It’s because the thin layer of spit on you tongue got frozen by the pole because it’s so cold. Same thing with leaving the cooled hot chocolate on the ice. It’ll spread out all over the pieces of ice, and there’ll be a thin layer which will freeze up, which helps). And now blend the mixture, until it looks and feels like a slushy!

I know it’s not very accurate, but I never really measure things when I make drinks and things. That and you should be able to modify this to your tastes. You don’t like creamy? Kick out the half and half. Now you think this seriously needs a bit of cream, because it just needs it?

I personally like it light but sweet. So I use 2% milk and use only approximately a teaspoon of half and half, and approximately two or three teaspoons of sugar.

It’s allll up to you.

~D.D.

Iced Tea & Blazing Summer Days

For the past few days it’s been blazing! The lowest temperature so far this week was probably 88 degrees. It’s killing, almost. And through the past week I’ve been living off of iced tea and a variety frozen berries(they really do help in the heat+they’re healthy+there’s no making involved+they taste delicious). I desperately wish I could run away to the beach these days. But none the less, home is home, and home is where I’m supposed to stay.

Well, I hope your summer is being better than mine :)

~D.D.

Tiramisu & Love

When I saw this dessert, it was love at first sight…

I still remember the first time we had met…it was a couple years back, I was eating dinner and Tiramisu showed up upon my dinner table…he was gorgeous….a dark brown hue layered with a creamy, warm white and dusted cocoa on the top…mmm…and the taste! Absolutely amazing…a sharp espresso flavor, lightly touched by a tinge of alcohol, with small but very notable ring of chocolate , and a amazing cream blanketing the whole thing….soo crazily delicious!

Of course, the next day I spent a while digging about and finding the perfect recipe, and trying it out, and it turned out quite good, and awesomely yummy. Plus it’s real easy to make :)

Here we go:

Tiramisu Italiano

adapted from Food Network

Ingredients:

For the cream(the white part):

• 7 eggs yolks(I’m not sure if size of the egg makes a difference, but I use medium sized eggs)
• 1/2 a cup of sugar(refer down 3 ingredients, for a small modification)
• 1/3 a cup of sweet marsala(you may want to minimize this if you don’t like the taste of alcohol in desert too much)
• 8 ounces of room temperature mascarpone( you can also use the coffee mascarpone if you somehow dig that out and it’s actually cheaper than the regular kind)
• 1 cup of heavy cream(and possibly more) OR some pre-made whipped cream(in which case you should minimize the sugar, unless you, for some magical reason, have found sugarless whipped cream)– (I prefer using the pre-made whipped cream, it’s just easier :D)

For the ladyfingers(the brown part):

• 1 cup espresso coffee(brewed)
• 1 oz. dark chocolate OR about a heaped half a tbsp. of dark chocolate powder and some sugar.
• 1/4 a cup of rum(once again, if you do not like the taste of alcohol minimize this)
• 2 tablespoons of marsala
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 48 lady fingers

and Lastly:

• cocoa powder for dusting!

For the cream:

Okay, so first, in bowl(check the bottom to see if it’s heat proof) over a pot of simmering water combine the egg yolks and the sugar. When they are successfully creamed together, add in the marsala, and then whisk(or use an hand mixer) the mixture until it starts to gain volume. Then set the whisk/hand mixer aside, take the bowl off stove and then add in the mascarpone and mix it in with a spoon(it’s easier with a spoon) until it’s successfully mixed in.

Now for those who are using pre-made whipped cream:

Take a gigantic spoon of the whipped cream, and using a whisk(or a hand mixer with the whisk attachment) mix the whipped cream in. Continue adding spoons of the whipped cream until the mixture appears to be capable of holding it’s shape.Note: every now and then, just pop the mixture in the freezer or refrigerator, because the cold helps the mixture to get thicker.

For those who are making whipped cream from scratch:

Grab a whisk(or hand blender or hand mixer), a bowl(make sure you pre-chill this by putting it in the freezer) and the (chilled)heavy cream.

• If you use a hand blender or mixer, simply flick a switch and in five minutes you will have a nice whipped cream.
• But how ever, if you intend to whip it by hand(which is crazily hard, and I do not recommend, but it is possible, because how did people do it back in the day?), use the whisk and whip the cream really hard, and every now and then put it in the freezer for a few minutes, then take it out and whip it up again.

Then after you have your whipped cream simply whip it into the marsala/sugar/egg/mascarpone mixture and you may need more than you already have to get it to a  state where it is able to hold it’s shape for a couple of seconds.

And voila! You have the cream part of the tiramisu!

Now just stick it in the fridge and let it chill.

Now, for the lady fingers…

Lady Fingers(the brown part) Part:

Okay…

If you are you are using solid chocolate(chips, a bar,etc…), grab a small-ish sauce pan, the chocolate, the espresso, the rum, the marsala, and the vanilla. Put all the ingredients into the small sauce pan, and heat on medium until the chocolate is fully melted. Now lets call this mixture CERMV(the initials of every ingredient).

If you are using chocolate powder grab a bowl(small-ish), the chocolate, the espresso, the rum, the marsala, and lastly the vanilla. Combine all the ingredients in the bowl and go snatch your sugar. Spoon in two teaspoons of sugar into the chocolate/espresso/rum/marsala/vanilla(lets call it CERMV) mixture. Now taste it. If it tastes worthy to be thrown down the drain, add in more sugar, and taste again. Continue doing this until it tastes semi-edible(because remember that we’re dipping the ladyfingers in this then layering them with the cream which already has sugar).

Now take the all the lady fingers, and arrange them in a dish(or dishes) that is(are) capable of holding two layers of the lady fingers, and the cream also. Make sure you do this before you start dipping the lady fingers, because if you suddenly realize that the tiramisu won’t fit in the dish you are working with, it’s not fun to re-arrange soggy lady fingers.

Okay, now we dip the lady fingers into the CERMV and form the first layer of lady fingers on the bottom of your dish.

Dipping tips: if you have the harder kind(there are soft ones that are spongy and hard ones that are…hard)of lady fingers, I reccomend holding them in the CERMV, completely submerged, for exactly five seconds(w/ the Mississippi’s).  However, if you are using the softer ones, try four or three seconds. But for both types of lady fingers you want them soft enough to sag over your fingers a bit as you are dipping them. If they are under dipped, then you will have a very dry tiramisu, without a strong enough coffee flavor, which is not good. If the lady fingers are over dipped, then they’ll break up on your fingers while they are being dipped or carried. But if you’re lucky and they don’t break at all, that’s fine.

Okay so now since you’ve formed your first layer of lady fingers, cover that layer with half of the cream, and then add another layer of lady fingers(that are dipped in CERMV) and cover that with the rest of the cream.

Let it chill in the freezer for a half hour or maybe more.

And TADA! you are done :)

Another little note: when you serve the tiramisu just dust it over with a bit of chocolate powder.

Hope you enjoy :)

~D.D.

P.S. You may not want to keep the tiramisu out for too long in heat, it tend to become a little melt-y(as you can see in my pictures :D)

Coffee & Cold

I don’t know if it’s just me, but the past few days have felt at least ninety degrees to me. But every time I check the weather channel or my thermometer it tells me it’s only eighty degrees. I wonder what it’ll feel like when it is ninety degrees…that won’t be fun at all…

But any way during those days, I’ve been cooling off, with a variety of ice creams(cookies n’ cream, coffee chocolate chip<yummm!!!>, and chocolate), sorbets(mostly strawberry, mango, and chocolate), and some home-made coffee granita(one of the many types of frozen desserts out in the world). Its a fairly simple recipe, and definitely not for those who like all things fancyschmancy. I served it to my father and he turned up his nose, and said, “I don’t eat plain ice.”

I suppose you could say a granita is really similar to your average sno cone, but I prefer saying granita(a: it confuses people and is quite amusing, b: it sounds fancy).

Here’s the recipe:

Coffee Granita

adapted from Not Without Salt blog by Ashley Rodriguez

1 and 1/2 cups of brewed espresso(you could add in some cream or milk, depending on your tastes)

3 cups of water

1 cup of sugar

a pinch of salt(literally, you don’t want any more than a pinch)

Okay, so first brew your coffee, and then mix it with the sugar and salt until the sugar n’ salt dissolves completely then put in a tray, nothing too deep (9 x 13 x 2 is good), and stick it in the freezer, and in approximately an hour(or if you’re feeling particularly impatient like me go every half hour)go and check back on it. If it isn’t semi frozen check back in another half an hour, if it is semi frozen(as in it’s mostly frozen with a itty bitty bit of bit of liquid) grab a fork and start scraping, and until there’s no solid chunks, and then stick it back in the freezer for another buncha minutes until there’s no liquid(although there will be a teeny tiny bit).

Tada! It’s just that simple!

Now just scoop into a dish of choice(mine was a martini glass, ’cause I just think they’re super awesome), and eat!

Bon Apetit!

~D.D

Flan & Whatnot

Last Saturday, I was going through my camera and cleaning out all the pictures, and a came across my Puerto Rico trip pictures, and I came across at least six or seven pictures of flan, and I was instantly reminded why I took so many pictures: I was attempting to remind my self to make it(I have the strangest ways to remind my self of things). And so that very Saturday, I dug out a recipe for flan.

Flan is amazing. It is creamy, soft, caramel-y, dessert that I absolutely love! It’s one of the most kick-butt deserts in South America.

Flan

adapted from the show: Dinner Impossible recipe by Robert Irvine

Ingredients:

The caramel(that liquid-y russet colored liquid around the flan):

• 1/2 a cup of sugar
• 1/8 a cup of red wine(any kind, I used Shiraz, I have no idea what year though)

The Cream Part:

• 1 1/2 (maybe even a bit less) of coconut milk
• 1 of evaporated milk
• 1/2 a cup of 2% milk(and just a bit more) or you can use whole milk(also 1/2 a cup)
• 1/2 a cup of heavy cream(minimize this a little if you use whole milk, it may become too heavy)
• 2 tsp. of vanilla extract
• 6 egg yolks
• 1/2 a cup of sugar

In the original recipe it says you need specialized flan tins, but you can make it in just about any thing that can be used in an oven, but just a leetle warning, if you use something that has a really high rim and then try to flip it, it wont end all too well…lets just say that a mini explosion occurs…

I used little glass bowls that are just big enough to fit into the palm of my hand, and sometimes a medium sized stoneware pan).

Here is a a picture:

That’s my littles sisters hand and it’s a bit big for her if you can see that. By the way, you’re also looking at the caramel right after you make it.

Firstly, preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

Now, we start with making the caramel. First get a small-ish pot and put stove, then fill it with the 1/2 a cup of sugar, and 1/8 a cup of wine. Swirl it around a bit, and make sure the sugar is coated, then turn the stove on. Continue swirling the mixture of sugar and wine around, until the sugar is completely dissolved, but do not let it boil before the sugar is completely dissolved. Finally when the sugar is completely dissolved, place the lid on the pot and let it boil for two minutes on high(or medium, depends on your stove). Then after those two minutes, you can take the lid off, and look at it to see if it has darkened to a deep amber color. Thenquickly pour the caramel into your cups (or whatever you chose to use) and swirl it around to create a thin layer of caramel on the bottom on dish. This must be done quickly or else, the caramel will cool and harden, which is not fun to deal with. After a while the caramel will harden.

Another note: Be really careful with the caramel, don’t go sticking it in your mouth and in between your teeth because if it hardens there, it could take a while to get it out.

Here’s a picture of the caramel held to the sunlight:

It’s such a gorgeous amber!

Okay, now for the creamy part of the flan:

Mix together the coconut milk, evaporated milk, the regular milk, the cream, and the vanilla extract in a sauce pan on the stove. Keep the sauce pan at medium heat, and slowly bring the mixture to a boil. When it starts boiling, turn off the stove, and let it come to room temperature.

Now, in a separate large bowl( a large one) mix together the six egg yolks and 1/2 a cup of sugar(which you gradually add to the eggs), and continue whisking until you see a shade of change in color(i didn’t see much really). Then gradually pour in the cream mixture(which was previously cooling), continuously whisking it as you pour the mixture in.

Next pour the cream mixture into your caramel-ed dish(es) and place them in a pan, and fill the pan until the water level reaches half way up you dish. While you are doing this do not let any water fall into the flan. Then bake them at 325 degrees until you are able to stick a knife in the flan and have it come out clean(this should take approximately forty minutes according to the recipe, but it took me nearly an hour, so it all depends on your oven, and how it is). Then when it finally is able to come out of the oven, take it out, and let it cool down to room tempreture, then refrigerate the flan for about 4 hrs(or longer, i doesn’t really matter). When you take it out of the fridge for serving, let it get a bit warmer, it helps when you flip the flan.

Bon appetit!

~D.D.