Is My Blog Burning #14: Orange You Hungry?
Butternut Flan
It’s that time again - time to dig through your pantries and probe your creative cuisine imagination to come up with the perfect dish for the virtual cooking parade that has become know as “Is My Blog Burning”.
I wasn’t so sure that I was going to participate in the event this month. I have been out of town for a while, and wasn’t really inspired to come up with a clever Is-My-Blog-Burning-worthy recipe. But I took a look at it again yesterday and realized that Ladygoat, from Foodgoat had come up with a theme that I could really handle. Orange. Not orange the food, necessarily, but orange, the color.
This would work perfectly for me. You see, belonging to a CSA, I get bombarded in the fall with butternut squash. Butternut squash is a richer, more flavorful substitue for pumpkin, and I use it all the time in place of pumpkin for cooking and baking. But you can only make so much “pumpkin” pie, bread, muffins, cookies, etc, in the fall before you get tired of it, so I end up freezing a lot of it.
For this Is My Blog Burning, I pulled out a pack of the frozen squash and whipped up a Butternut Squash Flan. It took very little time, effort or work, and the end result was really fantastic.
I’ll be adding this recipe to my “pumpkin” repetoire of fall menus, that is for sure!
1 2/3 cups sugar
6 eggs
2 cups butternut squash puree
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 cups heavy cream
In a small skillet combine 2/3 cup of the sugar with 1/4 cup water and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. continue to cook and stir until it is a deep caramel, Pour it into individual-sized ramekins, tilting them to coat the bottom evenly, and let the caramel harden.
In a bowl beat the eggs with the remaining 2/3 cup sugar, beat in the squash puree, salt, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cream, and pour the custard into the ramekins. Set them in a deep baking pan, add enough hot water to the baking pan to reach halfway up the sides of the loaf pan, and bake the flan in the middle of a preheated moderate oven (350 degrees F) for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
Let the flan cool and chill it, covered, overnight. Run a thin knife around the edge of the ramekin, invert a plate over the ramekin, and invert the flan onto the plates.
That looks rich and wonderful! Fantastic recipe. I know exactly where my next butternut squash is going. Thanks!
What a great way to use butternut squash! This one goes into the recipe file for the holidays!
Hi Irene - I LOVE flan (although British call it creme caramel) and make them a couple of times a month at least! Yours looks so delicious and I like the idea of adding ground ginger, I must try sometime. Thanks for sharing the lovely recipe.
Hi, Irene,
I wandered here to see your IMBB flan recipe, and ended up skimming through all your CSA posts. I’ve joined a CSA here in Massachusetts for the first time. It begins in June.
Have you signed up for your CSA this year? If so, I’ll look forward to reading about it. Let me know if you know of any other CSA bloggers, too. Thanks!
Best wishes,
Christine
hi, i have tested the recipe, VERY NICE AND JUMMY i must say!!!.