Thanksgiving « coffee & couch

What’s one thing that goes perfectly with Thanksgiving? You got it. Low-fat Pumpkin flan!!

It has been one of the most amazing Canadian Thanksgiving weekends I can remember, weather wise. The sun has been loving us for some time now and doesn’t appear to be going anywhere soon (Watch. Now that I’ve said it, we’ll have non-stop torrential rain ’til April!!!!). I’m cooking the turkey dinner today, because half of my little family has been away visiting another part of the family, and we couldn’t all be together until this evening. Don’t worry. There’s no drama. Just couldn’t all be in the same place at the same time–we’re all speaking to each other LOL.

I spotted this light pumpkin flan recipe on allrecipes.com and just had to give it a try. I’ve made some alterations, but I’ll tell you everything I did. It turned out quite well–yes, I ate the one I photographed, for breakfast!!!

Thanksgiving Pumpkin Flan — the light version

I love pumpkin pie, but I don’t love the crust and I’m pretty sure it’s mutual, ’cause I always gain weight when I eat it!!! So this flan seemed like a good plan…I should charge extra for poetry.

Low-Fat Pumpkin Flan

ingredients:

1 1/4 cups white sugar
2 tablespoons water
5 large eggs
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1 pinch ground allspice
1 pinch ground mace
1/3 cup white sugar (The flan isn’t very sweet, so if you like sweet desserts, I’d add about 1/4 cup more sugar)
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
1 3/4 cups low-fat milk (I used 2 percent milk, not skim. The normal flan recipe calls for heavy cream)
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped out and reserved
2 tablespoons hulled toasted pumpkin seeds (optional)

directions:

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C).
Set eight (5 1/2 ounce) ramekins into a large baking dish.
Stir together 1 1/4 cups sugar and water in a saucepan over medium heat; cook and stir until dark amber, about 10 minutes. (watch it carefully)
Quickly divide the caramel among the ramekins; set aside. (you’ll need to work quickly to swirl the caramel around the bottom of the ramekins)
Whisk eggs, cinnamon, salt, cloves, ginger, allspice, mace, and 1/3 cup sugar (or more) together in a large bowl. Stir in pumpkin puree until smooth.
Heat milk in a saucepan over medium-low heat until it starts to gently bubble and steam. Remove from heat.
Place vanilla bean seeds and pod (I only had liquid vanilla available so I used 1 tsp) in milk. Allow to soak for 10 minutes. Slowly strain hot milk mixture into the egg mixture and whisk to form a thin custard.
Divide the custard evenly among the ramekins, leaving about 1/4 inch at the top of each.
Fill baking dish with hot water to reach halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Cover the baking dish with heavy-duty aluminum foil.
Bake in the preheated oven until the flan is just set, 45 to 50 minutes.
Remove ramekins from hot water to cool completely. Cover and refrigerate until cold, at least four hours. (it’s really best to leave it overnight in the fridge)
Run a knife around the inside edge of each ramekin and place an overturned plate on top. Invert and release the flan. Garnish with light ice cream or whipped cream and serve.

This is the colour that the caramel should be. When it’s getting close to the colour, take it off the burner, because it will still keep cooking and can burn quickly. I’d ask someone to help you in the kitchen at this point to swirl the caramel after each pour: