My oh my, it's a flan not a pie!

As you're quite aware, the holidays are steadily approaching. With it, the pressure on home cooks to put out delicacies, and on dieters to not gain four pants sizes. With this post, I give you something close to a solution. Pumpkin flan.



See, aside from the occasional cookie, I don't really make many desserts. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I try to cook "healthy" things, and aside from fruit, most desserts just don't have much in the way of vitamins and fiber. It's probably just laziness though. However, what could be healthier than some pumpkin?



For this recipe, you need:
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons water
5 large eggs
1/3 cup sugar
1 can pumpkin puree
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 to 1 teaspoon vanilla (or a split bean)
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
pinch of allspice
pinch of mace
1 3/4 cups low-fat milk



You heat the first amount of sugar with the water and let it melt into caramel. Then you pour that into the bottom of eight oiled ramekins (which are sitting in a deep, oven-proof pan). The rest of the ingredients get mixed together (you have to heat the milk, so mix it in after you've already mixed the eggs into the sugar and pumpkin so they don't set up in your mix), then poured on top of the caramel. Then, you pour hot steamy water into the pan, halfway up the ramekins, and pop into a 300F oven for 45-50 minutes. It's done when a knife blade goes in and comes out clean.



Or, if you would like a much more accurate and professional description of the process, here's Chef John who made this recipe. Chef John makes wonderful posts and wonderful food, so definitely check him out.