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Orange Cardamom Flan recipe with step by step photos. Orange Cardamom Flan is a smooth, creamy, and delicious caramel custard that melts in your mouth. It’s made with just 7 simple ingredients.
My husband is OBSESSED with flan. It is one of his all-time favorite desserts. He was super excited when I told him I was making flan for Cinco de Mayo. After the first bite, he said to me, “Nisha, this is one of the best desserts you’ve ever made.” That made me very happy! 🙂
On our most recent trip to Mexico, we had the BEST FLAN at Maria Jiminez, a cute family-owned restaurant located in Downtown Los Cabos. The flan was delicious, light, and melted in my mouth.
What is Flan?
Flan is a popular dessert in Spain, Mexico, and Latin America. It’s a baked crustless egg custard topped with caramel. Flan is generally made with sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and/or milk. For this recipe, I used sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, eggs, vanilla, and sugar.
Many people believe Flan is complicated to make, but on the contrary, it’s actually quite simple to make. The water bath is perhaps the most complicated part of this recipe.
I initially wanted to make an Orange Flan, but I decided to add a slight Indian twist to this recipe by adding some cardamom as well. The orange cardamom combo pairs beautifully in this dessert. I added just enough orange and cardamom, but neither flavor is too empowering.
Tips on making Flan
- Prepare the caramel on the stove. Simply stir sugar over medium heat until the sugar is liquified and turns into a deep caramel color. Do not even think about touching this mixture to taste, you will burn your finger.
- Immediately pour the liquid caramel over your baking dish and swirl the baking dish around the sides making sure the caramel doesn’t fall. The caramel will instantly begin to harden.
- Prepare and pour the custard mixture over the hardened caramel.
- Now prepare a water bath. Carefully place the baking dish into a larger tray and fill up the larger tray. Place both trays into the oven. Pour boiling water into the larger tray until it covers the smaller baking dish halfway.
- The custard may be slightly jiggly once out of the oven, this is OK.
- Once the flan is out of the oven, let it cool outside for about 1-2 hours before refrigerating for 3-4 hours at least.
- When you’re ready to serve – using a pairing knife unmold the custard from the edges all around the baking dish. Place a serving tray over the baking dish and flip so the serving tray is now at the bottom. The Flan should easily release onto your serving dish.
Orange Cardamom Flan is:
Scrumptious
Melts in your Mouth
Light, yet rich
Smooth & Creamy
Mexican Indian Fusion Dessert
Gluten-Free
How to make Orange Cardamom Flan recipe with step by step pictures?
Prepare the Caramel
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and boil hot water over the stove. You’ll need hot water for the water bath.
2. Heat up sugar in a stainless steel pot over medium heat.
3. The sugar will turn into sugar crumbles after 4 minutes.
4. After a minute, the sugar will begin to liquify.
5. A minute later, the sugar will take on this deep caramel color. Turn off the stove. DO NOT TOUCH THE CARAMEL ELSE YOU WILL BURN YOURSELF. Pour the hot caramel into the baking dish and carefully swirl it all around.
6. Since I was taking pictures my caramel hardened immediately, you want to make sure the caramel gets to the sides of the dish if possible. If not, that’s okay. Let the caramel cool.
Prepare the Custard
1. Add the sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, eggs, vanilla extract, orange zest, and cardamom in a Blender or NutriBullet.
2. Blend until well combined.
3. Pour the custard filling over the caramel.
Prepare the Water Bath
1. Carefully transfer the baking dish into a larger baking tray that you can easily fill up with water. In my case, I used my castiron skillet since I didn’t have a larger baking dish. Pour boiling water into the LARGER BAKING TRAY so that it’s at the halfway mark of the smaller baking dish. Place both items into the preheated oven.
2. Cover the flan with a foil. Bake for 60 minutes.
Cool, Refrigerate, & Flip
1. Flan is out of the oven. Remove the baking dish from the water bath, Set aside and let it cool for 1-2 hours. The flan may be slightly jiggly, that’s OK.
2. Once flan is refrigerated and cooled, run a pairing knife around hte edges of the baking dish. Take a serving plate and place it over the flan.
3. Flip. The flan should release onto the serving plate. Now scrape all the caramel off the original baking dish and top it over the flan.
Slice and serve!
Orange Cardamom Flan (gluten-free, 7 ingredients)
Ingredients
for the caramel
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
for the egg custard filling
- 1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 12 ounce can evaporated milk
- 3 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1 tbsp orange zest
- 1/4 tsp cardamom
Instructions
Prepare the Caramel
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and boil hot water over the stove. You'll need hot water for the water bath.
- Heat up sugar in a stainless steel pot over medium heat.
- The sugar will turn into sugar crumbles after 4 minutes.
- After a minute, the sugar will begin to liquify.
- A minute later, the sugar will take on this deep caramel color. Turn off the stove. DO NOT TOUCH THE CARAMEL ELSE YOU WILL BURN YOURSELF. Pour the hot caramel into the baking dish and carefully swirl it all around.
- Since I was taking pictures my caramel hardened immediately, you want to make sure the caramel gets to the sides of the dish if possible. If not, that's okay. Let the caramel cool.
Prepare the Custard
- Add the sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, eggs, vanilla extract, orange zest, and cardamom in a Blender or NutriBullet.
- Blend until well combined.
- Pour the custard filling over the caramel.
Prepare the Water Bath
- Carefully transfer the baking dish into a larger baking tray that you can easily fill up with water. In my case, I used my castiron skillet since I didn't have a larger baking dish. Pour boiling water into the LARGER BAKING TRAY so that it's at the halfway mark of the smaller baking dish. Place both items into the preheated oven.
- Cover the flan with a foil. Bake for 60 minutes.
Cool, Refrigerate, & Flip
- Flan is out of the oven. Remove the baking dish from the water bath, Set aside and let it cool for 1-2 hours. The flan may be slightly jiggly, that's OK.
- Once flan is refrigerated and cooled, run a pairing knife around the edges of the baking dish. Take a serving plate and place it over the flan.
- Flip. The flan should release onto the serving plate. Now scrape all the caramel off the original baking dish and top it over the flan.
If I wanted to make this less sweet, do you think I could make it using all evaporated milk and no condensed milk? Thanks!
Hi Kirsten – I wouldn’t do that because that will affect the texture of the flan. 🙂 The sweetness is perfect, I don’t like overly sweet desserts either.
If you must – maybe do half the sweetened condensed milk and some evaporated milk and see if that works, but not sure.
What size pan did you use? Looking forward to trying this!
9″ baking dish.
Can this be made ahead of time/ refrigerated overnight before flipping over and serving?
Absolutely!
Thank you! I made this for some friends and everyone loved it!! The orange flavor is just delightful.
I made this last night and it was my first time making flan. I forgot to cover the top with foil before baking, but I ended up taking off the top part that got golden with a spoon and it ended up working out perfectly. The flan is delicious and I plan on making it again. Truly foolproof!
The perfect recipe! Follow all the steps and timing and you’ll have yourself the most amazing flan. The orange and cardamom is such a unique and pleasant flavour. Dont worry about the jiggly center at the one hour mark. It cools perfectly.
Perfect Recipe! I love flan and after i made this at home with your recipe i wont be ordering it from outside anymore! Thank you Nisha 🙂
This orange flan with cardamom was such a hit with my family that everyone was asking for more. Definitely one of the best flan’s I have ever made and tasted. Thanks for sharing this.
Wow drool worthy Pics Nisha. I am obsessed with Flan too, but somehow never got the recipe right. Bookmarking yours:).
Thanks Nithya. It’s so easy to make, the hardest part is the water bath. Don’t let it stop you though. I’m here for any questions you may have. 🙂