A homemade coconut, caramel and rum flan never set, even after baking well past the suggested time, according to a first-person account of the failed dessert. The cook, identified as Deb, combined elements from two separate recipes and swapped an ingredient, then served the loose custard to friends at a late dinner.
The trouble began when Deb decided to make flan for dessert while a friend, Jocelyn, prepared turkey tacos. Deb wanted a coconut, caramel and rum flan with a real caramel layer on the bottom that would end up on top once the dessert was flipped out of the pan. To get there, she caramelized a half-cup of sugar in the bottom of the pan, following instructions from a second recipe, and replaced a quarter-cup of caramel sauce with regular sugar. She changed nothing else.
The flan never firmed up. At the suggested cooking time of 1 hour and 15 minutes, it was still wiggly and loose. It remained that way at 1 hour and 25 minutes and at every ten-minute check after that, until well into the second hour. Deb gave up and brought the dessert to the gathering anyway, arriving around 10 p.m.
The reception was blunt. Molly pushed it away and said, "I think I'll skip this one. Sorry, Deb." Jocelyn took one bite and said, "This is the first thing that you have ever cooked that I actually didn't like." Darren claimed he was too full from dinner to try it. Deb tasted a spoonful herself, trying to understand how ingredients she loved, including rum, coconut, caramel and vanilla, could produce something so bad. She then drank some bourbon and moved on.
The cab ride further damaged whatever had begun to firm up, leaving a final product Deb described as vile-looking. No photos were taken. By Sunday, she wanted answers: why did a recipe that others had made successfully fail only for her? Was swapping caramel sauce for sugar a mistake? She had assumed custard texture came from baking eggs with dairy. She also asked whether a better approach existed and whether anyone had a favorite flan recipe.
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