For most people of my age the word flan conjures up the episode of Friends where Monica makes a birthday flan.

Monica Geller : We’re not having cake. We’re having flan.

Chandler Bing : Excuse me?

Monica Geller : It’s a festive custard Mexican dessert.

Well, today we having Flan de Café which is a coffee flavoured Mexican custard dessert direct from the South American chapter of Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery.  Now, I know Mexico is not in South America, and I know you know that Mexico is not in South America.  Good Housekeeping?  Maybe not so much! 

To amp up the coffee-ness of my flan, I baked them some vintage tea cups.

What did not need to amped up was the coffee flavour. I used the lower level of coffee suggested by the recipe which was 6 tablespoons and thought my heart was going to pop out of my chest for about an hour after eating it!  I was WIRED!  Talk about a major flan high!

I would probably halve the amount of coffee for future makes.  Outside of a power punch of caffeine, the flavour was lovely, the light touch of orange added a refreshing note and the custard was silky and smooth.  The Brazil nuts added a nice crunch as well as some garnish.  I   added some extra orange zest to the top of the flans to brighten them up.  I chose not to use the recipe’s serving suggestion because I have a bit of a yecchh factor with raw eggs and I could not find guava jelly anywhere.

Flan De Café – The Recipe

Festive Flan Fun

As I was making the flans, I remembered something I heard wayback one of those science shows for kids.  They said that there was enough oil in a brazil nut to act as a candle.  For some weird reason, that  piece of trivia has stuck in my head!  Well, I had Brazil nuts and I had a flan which, after all is a festive dessert!

I really didn’t expect this to work particularly as the nuts kept breaking when I tried to chop them into anything resembling a taper.  However….

Success!!!!  Now that’s a really festive custard dessert!

Have a great week!