Puerto Rican Flan de Queso

Recipe Ingredients

• Evaporated milk- For milk, we use evaporated milk. Unlike the Venezuelan quesillo or flan, which uses regular milk. The evaporated milk also adds a very specific taste that combines perfectly with everything else.
• Condensed milk- The condensed milk adds sweetness to the recipe. But it also has a very distinct flavor that the flan won’t have if you only add sugar.
• Cream cheese- I use 1 block of cream cheese. A lot of people always say to use a good cream cheese brand like Philadelphia. To tell you the truth, I use whatever brand I have at home.
• Vanilla- The vanilla extract adds a nice touch that goes very well with the cheese.
• Eggs- When making any type of flan, I always like to use 5 eggs. This is because I don’t like it when a flan has a strong eggy smell.
• Sugar- The sugar is used to make the caramel. If you don’t want to make it, you can always buy the caramel for flan. But I promise you that the caramel is very easy to make.

How to Make Flan De Queso

• Photo 1: The first thing you must do is the caramel. Here is where many people struggle, but I promise you it is super simple. Use a small pan over medium-high heat and add the sugar. Now, a lot of people say not to stir because sugar crystals will form. But that doesn’t matter, you’re going to stir your caramel to prevent it from burning. Once almost every sugar crystal is melted, turn the heat off and keep stirring.
• Photo 2: Then you need to carefully pour the caramel into your mold. Some people like to make the caramel in the mold you’re going to use. But depending on the mold you use, it won’t always be possible.

• Photo 3: In a blender, we start adding the evaporated and condensed milk. After we pour the vanilla extract and the cream cheese. Last, I like to add the eggs one by one. This is just a preference because I think it doesn’t make a difference.
• Photo 4: What I like to do is to pour the flan mix into the mold, but over a strainer. This is just in case the eggs or anything else are not mixed well. Then preheat the oven to 350°F.

• Photo 5: We now need to make a bain-marie. Take a pan that is bigger than your mold. Put your mold in the pan and fill it with water until it reaches almost halfway up the mold. Put this in the oven to cook for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Poke in the middle with a fork to check for readiness. When poked, the fork should come out clean.
• Photo 6: Remove the flan from the oven and remove it from the bain marie. Let the flan cool before unmolding. To unmold the flan, run a knife around the border of the mold so it can release better. You need a plate that is at least as big as your mold for your flan. Put the plate over the mold and flip the plate while holding the mold. Cool the flan for at least 2 hours.