Tuesdays With Dorie - Caramel Topped Flan

This is not the Tuesdays With Dorie recommended recipe. This week we were supposed to make a berry cobbler. Knowing me, many of you might very well ask why I didn't make it. I adore berries and biscuit dough, to the point of obsession, but because of this obsession, I already had half a rhubarb pie in the refrigerator. The pie, which I didn't blog about, had been frozen whole and unbaked, then baked a week later. The rhubarb kept its shape and its tartness, which I preferred to a collapsed mush. But then, you know how I feel about rhubarb.

So, assuming that I'd had all the biscuit-like things that were good for me this week, and that the house might like a change, I took advantage of the Tuesdays With Dorie newcomer loophole - the past recipe. I'm not totally clear whether this loophole is official, but it seems that when TWD members have reason to avoid a certain recipe on the list, it is permissible to switch in a recipe made by the group before they joined.

So, as my passion for custard equals my passion for biscuit and berries, I made a quick flan. I halved the recipe but not the caramel, as I wanted a lot. Flan is easy, quick and dirty, and always good. That said, my supply-influenced modifications, (half & half replacing milk and cream, two eggs instead of the recommended 1 and 1/2 egg and one yolk) seemed to make a thick and solid, rather than meltingly creamy, flan. All told, I would eat any flan gladly, but I think Alice Waters' version from The Art of Simple Food has worked out better for me. (In answer to the question posed in the comments, pictures have been a little spotty these days because I damaged Libby's camera and have been running around madly.)