Delve into the sweet tastes of these Brazilian dessert delights

Photo courtesy of Ben Fink

By Danielle Rehfeld

Between New Year’s and the first glorious sunny day of spring, few things warm me as much as surrounding myself with friends for a fun Sunday get together.

I recently invited some friends and co-workers, many of them pastry chefs, for a potluck. Interestingly enough, and much to my dismay, nobody brought a homemade dessert or even a store-bought one. Luckily, I had chatted with Brazilian native Chef Leticia Moreinos Schwartz the day before about some sweets for the party, and she offered up her Brazilian flan recipe. I was scared, but my love of flan intrigued me.

Chef Leticia’s new book, The Brazilian Kitchen, is filled with savory and sweet traditional and contemporary recipes that introduce the home cook to Brazil’s colorful and flavorful cuisine. When Chef Leticia shared how easy the recipe was to make, I didn’t believe her. I immediately pictured a series of disasters, ending with my finely- palated coworkers tasting my flan and saying nothing out of sheer politeness.

Flan, or crème caramel, is a cooked custard made with eggs, milk and sugar. When perfect, the custard’s rich, velvety base jiggles gently under a layer of caramel syrup that oozes over the top and pools around the base of the dessert.

Getting there is the hard part for a few reasons; first and foremost, making caramel can be pesky and frustrating. Secondly, an overcooked custard can leave you with a holey, eggy, lumpy mess that easily breaks when flipped out of the pan — the very last thing you want to happen at the end of a dinner party.

But Chef Leticia was right when she said it would be simple. Not only were most of the ingredients inexpensive and already in my cupboard and fridge, but the caramel was surprisingly simple to execute and the flan mix needed only to be blended, poured over the caramel and baked in a water bath for just under an hour. The hardest part was crossing my fingers five hours later and hoping that when I flipped the flan out of the pan it wouldn’t fall apart. Not only did it hold, as I sliced through the creamy custard and plated the flan, each guest finished their slice before the next person got one.

The following day, people were still talking about how it was one the best crème caramels they’d ever tasted. With rave reviews like that, Chef Leticia’s flan will inevitably be my go-to crowd pleaser for years to come. Her avocado crème brulee is equally delicious.

BRAZILIAN CRÈME CARAMEL OR PUDIM DE LEITE

Serves 6 to 8.

For the caramel:
3/4 cup sugar
3 Tbsps. water

For the flan:
1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1-2/3 cup whole milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
3 large eggs
2 egg yolks
1 tsp. vanilla extract round cake mold, 8 inches wide and 2 inches deep (or 4 individual ramekins)

Place the sugar and water in a clean heavy-bottomed saucepan. Cook the sugar over high heat without stirring, until it turns into an amber-colored caramel, about 5 minutes.

Pour the caramel into the cake mold and swirl it around ,making sure the caramel evenly covers the whole bottom of the pan. You don’t want to have any concentrated lumps of caramel in any part of the pan. Be advised that the caramel will continue to cook once it’s off the heat, so work fast. Set the pan aside.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix all the ingredients for the flan in a blender or (ideally) a food processor, until smooth.

Carefully and slowly pour it into the prepared caramel pan. Transfer the caramel pan to a large roasting pan and fill it with warm water so that it comes halfway up the sides of the pan. Carefully transfer the roasting pan to the center of the oven and bake until the custard is set, about 45 to 55 minutes.

Remove the roasting pan from the oven. Transfer the custard pan to a wire rack. Let it cool at room temperature, then refrigerate for at least 4 hours. It’s important to invert the flan only when it is chilled completely, otherwise it might break.

When ready to serve, run a smooth knife around the inside of the cake pan. Place a large rimmed serving platter on top of the cake pan, and holding the pans together with both hands, quickly invert the flan onto the platter. Hold the pans together for at least a minute to make sure all the juices of the caramel fall onto the platter.

AVOCADO CRÈME BRULEE OR CRÈME BRULEE DE ABACATE

Serves 4.

1 cup sweetened condensed milk
2 medium firm-ripe Haas avocados, peeled, pitted and cut into chunks (between 8- 10 ounces flesh)
2 to 3 Tbsps. fresh lemon juice about 1/2 cup sugar for topping propane blow torch
4 crème brûlée ramekins

Put the condensed milk and avocados into a food processor and process until the mixture is velvety smooth, about 1 to 2 minutes.

Add the lemon juice 1 Tbsp. at a time, and pulse for a few seconds after each addition. At this point, taste the avocado cream to check if the lemon juice is giving the right balance. I usually use 2 Tbsps. of fresh lemon juice and add more if necessary.

Using a rubber spatula, scrape into four ramekins, making sure the mixture is flat inside. Chill for 4 hours.

Right before serving, spread a thin, even layer of sugar over the top of each. Ignite the torch to medium. Melt the sugar by moving the flame across the custard while maintaining a distance of 2 inches from the surface. The sugar will melt, bubble, then turn into a golden caramel. In less then a minute, it will harden to a delicious crust. Cool for 3 to 5 minutes before serving. Do not brûlée the dessert more then 20 minutes in advance of serving.

Cook’s Note: If you can’t find a blow torch, pre-heat the broiler and make sure to have the ramekins in an ice bath over a roasting pan before burning the sugar. Depending on your broiler, it can take seconds or minutes to caramelize the sugar, so stand by, watching very carefully. When the sugar starts to bubble remove the roasting pan from the broiler then remove the ramekins from the ice bath.

This is part of the February 25, 2010 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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