Instant Pot Flan

Who knew, right? Some fluke of fate sent me on a quest to make flan in the Instant Pot, the day after Thanksgiving, with a boatload of desserts in the fridge. I found several, and mashed 2 together to fit what I had and what I wanted to do. Many of them called for sweetened condensed milk (had it) and evaporated milk (did not), but one called for whole milk (had it).

My inspirations: Run Away Rice who makes the caramel part in the bowl in the microwave, so no extra dish to wash and no burning on the stove, and One Happy Housewife, who uses cream cheese plus the 2 canned milks.

I did Run Away Rice’s caramel, in a crockery pot I have that fits in the IP, and reduced the time because my microwave is stronger. I think it might have still been a little too dark at 2:42 (it tasted a little burnt), and using a calculator, it maybe should have been 2:37, so next time I’ll do 2:30 and add 5 seconds if needed, as recommended. It did coat the crock nicely! I subbed cream for evaporated milk, and after measuring the sweetened condensed milk (she calls for 1/2 can of each), I realized sweetened condensed milk weight was not fluid ounces, so I re-measured using my scale. I used my little smoothie making blender rather than drag out the full size, and next time maybe I’ll add the SCM last since it did coat the bottom of the blender and didn’t all blend in. I used a strainer on the chance my cream cheese cubes didn’t get fully blended, and a fair amount of the cream cheese was left in the strainer, but not in large chunks. Run Away Rice strains the batter – Housewife didn’t. I might not next time since I don’t want to miss the cream cheese yumminess. And it was sooo yummy!

I just found another recipe that’s an Indian take on custard – steamed, on a stove, which of course is basically how this is cooked – but with 1/2 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg. I really wanted to put nutmeg but none of the flan recipes called for it. I guess it’s an Indian thing, but I’ll definitely try it. Also, the Indian version makes the caramel separately and pours it on after cooking.

Another recipe calls for orange liqueur and orange zest, plus tequila. I guess the additions possibilities are endless!

Print Recipe

Instant Pot Flan

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Ingredients

• 1/3 cup sugar + 1 1/2 Tablespoons water for the caramel
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 7 ounces by weight sweetened condensed milk (1/2 can)
• 3 eggs
• 2 ounces cream cheese, cubed (orig recipe called for 4 but I only had 2)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups water for IP

Instructions

1

Mix the water and sugar in the flan bowl

2

Microwave for 2.5 minutes (1200 w microwave)

3

Tilt the bowl to get the caramel onto all the surfaces of the bowl

4

Add cream, sweetened condensed milk, eggs, cream cheese and vanilla to blender and blend it all up (I used my MyBlender)

5

Pour into the caramel bowl - you hear crackling of the caramel, which is normal.

6

Cover the bowl/pan tightly with foil

7

Add 3 cups water to IP

8

Put bowl into IP on the IP trivet (IE, with the trivet on the counter, put the bowl on it, then lower the trivet/bowl into IP)

9

IS THE SEALING RING IN THE IP???? very important - put the valve to Pressure too

10

Manual, High Pressure, 14 minutes, NPR

11

Cool on counter (between 20 minutes and 1 hour?) - I did 30 minutes

12

Transfer to refrigerator for a minimum of 2 hours, longer is apparently better, but who can wait?? I gave in around 2 hours, and it was so freaking good!

Notes

DANGER WILL ROBINSON: caramelized sugar is 3rd degree burns waiting to happen - use good thick oven mitts for the entire caramelizing process. I ended up putting the pan on top of an ice pack to cool it down a little while I made the batter.

Here’s what it looked like after baking! The brown edges are not burnt – that’s the caramelized sugar which covered the sides, melted down onto the flan.

The 2 recipes differed on the IP process as well – I followed Housewife’s 3 cups water + 14 minutes high pressure + NPR. Run Away Rice called for 1.5 cups water + 12 minutes on Steam, Low Pressure + 10 minutes NPR. Housewife suggests a countertop cooling of 20 minutes, Rice says 1 hour; HW says chill at least 3 hours, RAR says at least 6. Other recipes agree on long chilling – apparently the caramel will be runnier if you wait longer. All of them had ideas for something to buy at Amazon – hopefully my crockery pot will work, since I’m trying to cut down on Amazon One Clicks! (It worked! It worked!)