A silky smooth baked custard with a sweet caramel sauce. This purin aka creme caramel is wobbly, sweet and delicious!
What is purin?
Purin is essentially the Japanese version of a pudding otherwise known as creme caramel, flan or baked custard around the world. Purin are so popular in Japan that you will find them in everywhere from convenience stores to patisseries. You can even find powdered purin to make at home!
The Japanese obsession for purin isn’t unwarranted. How can you resist a silky smooth wobbly pudding covered in caramel sauce?
How to create the perfect flan?
When creating purin the most important thing is the texture. You want to create the smoothest pudding possible as that is the main event. The biggest obstacle is air bubbles. Air bubbles can affect the texture of the pudding and it doesn’t look great either. Here are some tips to create a silky smooth flan.
Whisk as little as possible
Only whisk the batter until the eggs have been dispersed. There is no need to beat the eggs as it will only create air bubbles
Pour the mixture through a sieve
Pouring the batter through a sieve will filter out any air bubbles that were created during the mixing process.
Bake on low for a longer time
Baking the puddings on a high heat can cause the batter to bubble up as it bakes. A low temperature prevents this.
Place a tea towel underneath the ramekins
Air bubbles will form when the heat is too high. By placing a tea towel beneath the ramekins prevents the bottoms of the puddings from getting direct heat. No direct heat = less air bubbles!
How to remove flan from the ramekin
Now you have baked your purin you need to unmould it. This can be a bit of a difficult task, but with a few tips there shouldn’t be any problems.
- Heat the sides of your ramekin: You can run it under hot water or heat the sides with a blow torch
- Run a thin knife along the top edge of the pudding
- Invert the ramekin onto a plate
- Holding the ramekin to the plate give it a few strong shakes until you hear the pudding release
- Slowly lift the ramekin up to reveal your perfect flan!
Let’s Get Cooking
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Purin (Japanese Creme Caramel)
A silky smooth baked custard with a sweet caramel sauce. This purin aka creme caramel is wobbly, sweet and delicious
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: 4 puddings 1x
- Category: Pudding
- Method: Easy
- Cuisine: Japanese
Ingredients
Caramel
- 70 g Sugar (1/3 cup)
- 1 tbsp Water
Custard
- 500 ml Milk (2 cups)
- 3 Eggs
- 70 g Sugar (1/3 cup)
- 1 tsp Vanilla
Instructions
Caramel
- In a medium saucepan combine the sugar and water
- Heat on medium low heat until the sugar has dissolved and tuned a golden brown
- Remove from heat and distribute the caramel between 4 large ramekins
Custard
- Preheat the oven to 150C/305F
- Combine the sugar and milk in the same saucepan, heat until the sugar has dissolved and the milk is steaming
- In a medium sized bowl combine the eggs and vanilla
- Add the milk to the eggs, whisking gently as you pour
- Once combined pour the mixture slowly through a fine meshed sieve
- Then portion the mixture between the 4 ramekins
- Fold a tea towel in half and place on the bottom of a baking tray, then fill the tray 1/4 of the way up with boiling water
- Place the ramekins in the tray and bake for 45-50 minutes (the time will vary depending on your mould)
- Remove ramekins when the custard has set on the outer edges and the centre is still slightly jiggly
- Cool and refrigerate overnight, minimum 4 hours
- To serve run the edges of the ramekin in hot water, then run a knife around the top edge of the pudding
- Turn the ramekin upside down on your serving plate, and while holding the ramekin down on the plate give it few big shakes to ease the pudding out
- Enjoy!
