Modern Mexican Chocolate Flan with Kahlua

Though not as rich and creamy as some, the texture was smooth and silky and the flan had a sweet chocolate flavour and a delicious topping of bittersweet caramel.

I don’t have much experience with baked custards so I followed the author’s instructions closely. Though he starts with the caramel, it made more sense to me to start with the custard as some of the ingredients needed to steep for 20 minutes. The directions were clear and all seemed to go well.

I don’t think I over-baked my flans as they still jiggled when I removed them after 25 minutes of baking and had not passed the clean knife test just a few minutes before that, but I think I may have incorporated too much air into the mixture as there were tiny air pockets on the surface. Also, some sort of separation of ingredients took place during baking…it looks like a layered dessert.

Appearance (and possible user error) aside, I was a little disappointed with the flavour: I found that the almond extract overwhelmed both the cinnamon and the Kahlua making this more of a chocolate-almond flan.

The author warns that Mexican chocolate is not like others so perhaps I was expecting too much.....I’d like to try the more classic vanilla version of this recipe.