culinary books & magazines.

In my family, my Aunt Celia's flan are the best! Every time we have a family reunion, she whips up her flan and we gobbled it all up in a new york minute. I often wonder what's so special about her flans, so last December, when she is in one of my mom's shopping expeditions, I asked here for her recipe and suffice to say I got it. With the Christmas orders that I was receiving last December, I didn't have the time to try it out.

Still butter-less and itching to bake, I went on and did her recipe from what I can remember, that is :) I lost the paper where I wrote it drown! Crap! How bad could it be right? I can make cakes so I can definitely make a flan, right? Well.....I spoke too soon. Forgoing the normal norm in making a flan found in western cookbooks, I went in search for our steamer. I found the part with hole, however, I couldn't find the bottom part. So such a ninny that I am, I didn't notice that the handle of the steamer part is made of plastic. Guess what happened? Yup! you guessed it right the whole thing fell with the plastic handle all melty and disfigured! Fortunately, it fell after my flan got cooked. That's disaster #1, #2 is as I was making the caramel topping as I was swirling in in my 'liyanera' aka flan mold. My sugar got caramelized too much so as you can see in the pictures. My topping is darker than it should. Whew! who would have guessed that flans are such complicated thing to do! But the stars are with me and had a beginners luck because even after all that trouble, the flan turn out great if not just a little bit too sweet for my taste :)

Here is the picture of my ruined steamer. Can you see the white melted part in the picture? That used to be the handle.