The answer!

So I poured the caramel into the ramekins, boiled the milk and stirred it into the egg mixture, and then poured that (and I’ll be honest, there was a bit of swearing and mopping up during this stage) into the ramekins on top of the caramel. Then I poured boiling water into the pan around the ramekins (more swearing involved) and…into the oven it all went!

And, 40 minutes later…ta da!

Flan! But I know what you’re really thinking…was it any good?

Yes. Yes, it was. 😉

Here’s the recipe I used – Flan Mexican. I chose it because it had the simplest ingredients – most of the other ones I found called for sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk, which I didn’t have on hand. Tasted like flan to me – I imagine the more complicated recipes (ingredient-wise) might yield a more sturdy flan – that’s all I can think of otherwise I don’t know why you wouldn’t just use plain old milk (and mine was 1% – I didn’t know if it would have enough fat in it to work, but it did…). Also, I halved it and it came out just right for six small ramekins.

p.s. – Here’s what they don’t show you on the Food Network:

But it was worth it. Plus, there’s a dishwasher here, so that makes my job a little bit easier. And the caramel ended up being quite easy to clean up – I was worried for a bit, given the state of the bottom of the pan, but it came off!

And now back to the good Doctor.